Resurfacing

Metaphors. I love them. This one sums up what I am feeling right now. It's like I recently went for a deep dive into the bottom of a murky lake and although not "bad" in reality because all things work out for greater good, it was hard to see down there. I was probably scared of the unknowns and knew it would take some work to get back up from the depths of that place. Also, if you were swimming  back up to shore in your own lake, running low on oxygen, you would stop at nothing to get back to the top, to resurface into the place where the sun shines and life keeps moving on. Stay stuck at the bottom of that lake and sooner or later the world goes on without you.

 

 

 

I feel free when I am behind my camera. All of a sudden things are brighter and you take a closer look as your brain captures the moment first in your mind and then *snap*, the moment is trapped in time. It's the way the lens transforms the rippling waves of a lake into the rippling waves of a still photo; or the way a child swings high into blue sky and then her hair is forever stopped just so with the wind twirling it. It's the way you see the details so clearly when you're focusing with the camera and how it slowly focuses the moment in real life into something magical. Something that is a gift already but now it has a treasure to show for it.

 

 

I go back over the photos and I look at them, I zoom in on my children's eyes or the way my youngest smiles with his lip curled under, and I laugh because somehow I miss that way too much in the speeding moments of the day.

 

 

 

I know this is my answer. Use whatever tools you need to find the beauty. And when the beauty is found then so is the grace.

Life is hard; it's so cliché but true. Yet life is full of so many exquisite moments; these amazing moments that are waiting to be captured. Sunsets and sunrises that happen every morning and every night. How often do we wake up early enough to witness such beauty? A free gift for the taking. Birds flying by, children skipping stones into shallow water, the way their faces look when you tell them a joke, how their hair, full of electricity, sticks up on all ends as they slide down the slide.  How many times have I watched my boys slide down slides in almost seven years? Too many to count. But how many times did I really see them?? How many times did I capture that moment in my mind? Not nearly enough.

 

It's very late and I can hear the train's whistle, just down the street, alerting the sleeping town of its transient presence. I find comfort in this sound, it's been a constant companion to me in each home I have ever lived in. But this train sounds different tonight. It's passing by to remind me to stay awake. Life is like that train; just passing by. There are plenty of whistles to alert us that it's here right now, steadily moving forward on the track, but just how often do we stop to listen?

And another metaphor. Sweet dreams.