(Floating on the colorful reflections.)
Learn to pause … or nothing worthwhile will catch up to you.
~ Doug King
In the moment
(Overlooking Lake Haiyaha. Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. Photo © 2009 by Robin)
I am I plus my surroundings; and if I do not preserve the latter, I do not preserve myself.
~ Jose Ortega y Gasset
(Raindrops on tiger lilies. Photo © 2009 by Robin)
Beauty awakens the soul to act.
~ Dante Alighieri
(Symbol in the trees. Photo © 2009 by Robin)
Anything that excites me for any reason, I will photograph; not searching for unusual subject matter, but making the commonplace unusual.
~ Edward Weston
(Feeling small. Photo © 2009 by Robin)
Sometimes during the day, I consciously focus on some ordinary object and allow myself a momentary “paying-attention.” This paying-attention gives meaning to my life. I don’t know who it was, but someone said that careful attention paid to anything is a window into the universe. Pausing to think this way, even for a brief moment, is very important. It gives quality to my day.
~ Robert Fulghum
More photos and a bit about this morning’s hike at Life in the Bogs.
(Dunes. Ocean City, New Jersey. September 2008. Photo © Robin)
To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle. Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.
~ Walt Whitman
Note: This is a repost, although I’m not sure that’s the correct term. I’m “restoring” Bountiful Healing, one old post at a time after having privatized most of them when I thought I might be finished with this blog.
I’m sitting in a hotel room on the eve of my 50th birthday, having gotten one of the best gifts of all — a weekend visit with my granddaughter and her parents. We went to watch her at her swim lesson this afternoon. I am always surprised by how such simple things — watching the Exquisite Emma swim around in a pool or play dress-up or any of the thousands of other things she does in the course of a few hours — can fill me with such love and delight.
I noticed today that I’ve started telling stories. Stories about my childhood. Stories about my teen years. Stories about my young adult years. They just started popping out, these stories. As if I suddenly want others to know something about my history (while I still remember it… !).
I told at least three or four stories today. I even taught Emma to sing a song her father made up when he was a little older than she is now. It was a song about riding a ferry across the water to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We were taking a mini-vacation, and as we waited for the ferry to arrive, C made up a little song which he sang over and over and over… and well, we heard it a lot. It’s a catchy little song, one that qualifies as an earworm because once it gets in your head, it doesn’t want to go away. Emma picked it right up and sang her own version of it.
(Is that payback, do you think? lol!)
Anyhow.
It’s snowing like crazy, here where it shouldn’t be. Not that they don’t get some snow in this part of the world once in a while. But not this kind of snow. This is more like the snow we see at home. I took a quick look at the radar and see that it’s snowing like crazy at home, too. I hope the cats and sitter are enjoying it.
Last night a friend gave me a book for my birthday. It’s the first of the “50” gifts: 50 Things To Do When You Turn 50. I already finished my list of 50 things I want to do, but I’ve flipped through the book and now I think I’ll sit back, relax, and read a little of it. The first essay in the book was written by Garrison Keillor, and is titled “Stop Complaining.” I read it last night a few hours after receiving the gift. Good advice: Stop complaining. He’s right about that. I’ll be back with a quote or two, no doubt, after we get settled back home.
If you’re looking for a connection between the photo and this post, I don’t really have one other than the photo and quote were sitting in my drafts folder, ready to go. But I guess there is one other possible connection. The white sand and the white snow.
Otherwise, I just used this as an excuse to ramble a little. And to mark this milestone in a small way. I’ll be leaving my 40’s in a little under 2.5 hours.
50 is going to be fab.
It was an unusual weekend. This will be an unusual post for Bountiful Healing.
My oldest son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter (the Exquisite Emma) came for a visit this weekend.
Normally when they come for a visit we go out and do something that might appeal to a 2-year-old girl. The zoo, the county fair, and in the case of this weekend, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
Also normally, during the course of the weekend I take about 300 photos of Emma, out of which I get about 8-10 great shots. Emma is a wonderful subject and very photogenic, but she’s a 2-year-old who is almost constantly in motion. Plus I prefer candid shots over the posed variety. Posing has its moments and its purposes, but the best photographs are usually candid shots. Occasionally (twice so far) I put together a little booklet for Emma with photos from the weekend. The first booklet was A Visit to the Zoo where there were shots of the animals as well as Emma and her parents. The second was Emma Goes to the County Fair, again with shots of the animals as well as Emma, her parents, and Grandpa and me (<–Grandma).
Taking that many photos means I spend a lot of time following Emma around as if she’s Miss Hollywood with me playing the role of the paparazzi constantly snapping and flashing. Taking that many photos also means I’m not really spending good quality time with Emma.
On Friday our youngest son left for a geology field trip in West Virginia. It involved camping, hiking, and mapping some mountains. Because it is the time of year for leaf-peeping(TM), he asked if he could borrow my camera for the trip.
The idea of loaning out my camera for the entire weekend was not the least bit appealing to me. I was worried my son would lose the camera or break it as he was climbing around on some mountain. I already lost the lens cap on our last great hiking adventure. It broke off the strap and popped off the lens during a rough stretch of hiking when I was paying more attention to my footing and my own safety than that of the camera. I haven’t replaced it yet which meant another worry.
But the main thing was that I’ve gotten so used to carrying the camera around that it’s almost become a part of me.
Who knew that taking photographs could become so addictive?
Not that it’s a bad addiction to have. Realizing that I didn’t want to let go of the camera for even a few days was a sure sign that I needed to do it.
So, I’ve been without a camera all weekend. I don’t have one photograph taken by me of Emma’s first experience with the circus. I don’t have one shot (taken by me) of the incredibly colorful and entertaining circus clowns or other acts. There will be no Emma Goes to the Circus book from this weekend. Or Emma Meets Izzy & Bella (the kittens).
I briefly (and vocally) lamented the fact that I was sans camera when we arrived at the Q to find that for most of the hour prior to the show they opened up the floor (or rings, since this is a circus) to the audience so they can interact with the performers, get autographs, take pictures, etc. I missed many up close and personal photo ops.
We had fantastic seats. I missed many more up close and personal photo opportunities. Emma was enthralled. I could have taken a lot of good shots of the look of wonder on her face as the trapeze artists went flying through the air or the smiles when Bello was performing. I missed a few good photos of Bello, for that matter.
Even so, I don’t regret the decision to spend a weekend without the camera hanging around my neck. It was a good decision with ultimately good consequences.
Main lesson learned from the experience: I enjoyed being in the moment rather than trying to capture and save the moment.
Instead of photos, I have a weekend filled with playtime, tickles, hugs, kisses, giggles, and lots of laughter, all shared with Emma. Instead of photos, I watched the circus performances and the various looks on Emma’s face. Instead of photos, I participated in the experiences of the weekend. Instead of photos, I have the gift of time spent with some of the people I love most in this world.
So, in case you’re still wondering what it is, the unusual thing about this post is: the lack of photos.
It might well be my best post yet, as far as I’m concerned.
Not to worry, though. Regular posting of photographs will resume tomorrow.
(My lovely niece. Photo by Robin. July 2007)
Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present, and future.
~ Gail Lumet Buckley
(The body of a tree. Photo by Robin. 2007)
Here in this body are the sacred rivers: here are the sun and moon as well as all the pilgrimage places … I have not encountered another temple as blissful as my own body.~ Saraha
As I slowly approach the age 0f 50 (the turn of the decade occurs in December 2008), I find myself finally (FINALLY!) beginning to feel comfortable in my body. But lately I’ve felt more than comfortable. I’m actually enjoying myself.
I thought, at first, this was a brand new feeling, one I’ve never had before. But then it occurred to me that I must have felt this way as a child. Happy, joyful, glad to be in my own skin.
I haven’t had plastic surgery. I haven’t lost a lot of the weight I need to shed. I still have the aches and pains that come with getting older, various parts beginning to feel a lifetime of usage. I still have to take care with my back injuries.
Perhaps that’s it. The back injuries. The call to action. The decision to honor and care for my body as I wish I had been doing all along.
It’s interesting how life set up this series of coincidences. There have been quieter wake-up calls that I’ve ignored over the past few years. Then I got hit hard with the back problems and being unable to walk. What’s interesting, and coincidental, is that if we’d stayed in the Bogs, hadn’t gone on a sabbatical adventure, I’m not sure I’d have pulled myself out of the dark pit of pain. Well, maybe. Eventually. But the move to a new town with new things to explore forced me to do something while I waited for our insurance to kick in.
My waiting wasn’t passive as it might have been at home. It was an active waiting. A waiting in which I went faithfully to the gym every morning, even when I couldn’t do more than hang on to the rails of the treadmill and shuffle along at 1 mph. Even when all I could do was sit on the bench of the weight machine and hang there, in a kind of sitting traction. Some days the better part of the workout was just getting to the gym. Walking down the hallways, riding down in the elevator, walking down more hallways, opening doors. Those simple acts, things we all take for granted, were often all that I could manage. Sometimes more than I thought I could manage, making me push myself beyond what I perceived to be my limits, limits enforced by pain or by my own thinking.
Then one day I was able to pull down the bar of the lat pulldown machine. I discovered that walking uphill was less painful than a level or downhill course.
I was moving. I was doing. I was being.
I’ve lost a few inches. Weight/strength training will do that to a body. I’ve also lost about 10 lbs. But it’s not the loss of weight or inches that has me enjoying the feel and look of my body.
The change occurred within my soul or spirit or mind or whatever you want to call it.
I sat with my pain, listening to it, encouraging it to tell me what I needed to do next. I learned from it.
And now, now I’m discovering the awesomeness of the human body. The way it can bounce back, if given even half a chance, some nurturing, and some love. The way it can somehow work around the injuries, heal around them in such a way that it’s possible to start feeling normal again.
Cool beans. 🙂
(Green frog by the pond. Photo by Robin. 2006)
An old pond
a frog jumps in
Sound of water– Matsuo Basho
Another old post revisited.
Bountiful Healing 