THANKFUL FRIDAY

The most perfect snowflake landed on my windshield and I did not take a picture of it. I tried. I dug my phone out of my bag and started to set the macro settings, but in the time it took me to do all of that, the snowflake melted. I sat there for a few minutes watching little star shaped flakes collide with the glass but gave up on the idea of taking the picture.

Beautiful things don’t ask for attention. - James Thurber, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

In the last few weeks, I have neglected to tap the shutter button or even get my camera out from under my bra strap (this is where I carry my phone, like a holster). I will admit that some of the reason for this is that I’m just not feeling it. The other side of that is that I’ve been fully engaged in recent activities as opposed to just observing from the other side of a lens. Stepping out from behind the camera is not unusual for me during this time of the year. The lack of color and sun in winter time is less than inspiring. At least for me. I do make an occasional attempt at stepping outside with the camera, but I can’t deny that I am a warm weather bird. Lately, it has felt more important to be part of the conversation with the group I have gathered with than it is to photograph the group.

In February of last year, Roze gave us all in the Self Care Circle an assignment to write a letter to ourselves. She gave us those letters last week along with a note to maybe write a new letter to ourselves before reading the one from February. I wrote a new note to myself on Sunday and in that letter I told myself how important it is for me to seek out beauty with my camera. In the last few weeks, I’ve had two different people bring up the topic of showing my prints. I am grateful for that time I spent not taking the picture of the snowflakes. They were beautiful, but it got me thinking. Beautiful things may not ask for attention, but that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve attention. I ended the letter I wrote to myself in February with “You are enough. Really…at the end of the day…this is the only thing you need to remember.” Those words meant something different to me then. Now, those words feel like a blessing, a whisper saying “your photos are beautiful and they deserve attention.” My creations are enough.

It is time to start considering my next showing.

NANOBLAHBLAH

I am not participating in National Book Writing Month or National Blog Writing Month. I really haven’t participated in either of those activities in a few years. I’ve also failed to complete a year of a photo a week project since the lockdown. All I had to do was take one photo a week for a whole year. The constraints of a theme, suffocated the project. I will say that I am very impressed with myself for completing a thirty one day photo challenge presented by LaSahwn Wiltz of Everyday Eyecandy. She posts a list of daily prompts for the month of October and every year, I save the list and say “Cindy, you are going to do this.” I last maybe five days.

This year, I did ALL of the days!

Recently, Michael broached the subject of scheduling an art showing for my photos. He reminded me of the one I had had on the books for 2020 when the world stopped and then asked what ‘we’ were going to do about scheduling another. I feel like every time Michael uses the word ‘we’ he really means me. I need to schedule another showing. I was on glass two and half of wine and not in the mood for this discussion. I told him that we could discuss this in 2023 and returned my attention to the game of Two Dots I was currently playing. That’s exactly how I want to finish out this year: tabling all discussion of personal growth and progress until 2023.

I spent an hour today on a website I used to buy a lot of t-shirts from, browsing for Christmas gifts. Then I spent an hour scrolling through photos from the year to see if I had anything decent of the three of us that I could turn into a Christmas Cars. I do not. The point is, I have found really good ways to keep myself occupied that have nothing to do with personal growth or goals set at the beginning of the year. Yes, I realize that we still have (mostly) two months left in this year, but if your life is anything like mine (and I bet it is) your calendar is filling up with social engagements, holiday planning and general fuckaround time. I currently feel like I’m on a runaway train, flying down a hill and I don’t see the point in doing anything other than just holding on.

I probably would have benefitted from participating in NaNoWriMo this year considering I had set a pretty huge book writing goal for myself at the beginning of the year. I can honestly say that I worked on that book regularly, like daily, for about six months. Then I stopped working on it because I got stuck in the same dang place I always seem to get stuck when trying to write this particular story. My inner critic usually pipes in right around now and tells me how much of a failing loser I am. My inner critic is so freaking mean. She/it is just plain awful, or at least she/it used to be just plain awful. Lately, that inner critic has been really quiet and only voiced an opinion recently by whispering “maybe this isn’t the story you’re supposed to be writing.” For a minute, I thought it was a trick, like being invited to the cool girl’s party so they could throw a bucket of cows blood on me. Or something like that…I never really saw that movie. Then my inner critic repeated her/it’s self with a gentle tone of voice and I thought , maybe this isn’t a joke.

My inner critic just gave me useful advice that didn’t even feel critical and was nice about it.

The thing about goals is that they are always present. In fact, I’m not even planning on making new ones for 2023. I’m just going to tweak the ones I have. More than half of my goals are the kind that are completed only if I’m dead. Those tend to be the goals I set to extend my life, like exercise and eating lots of kale. Those other goals are just the sprinkles on my life sundae. I don’t need them. The sundae is still delicious with our without sprinkles.

I’m a sundae in progress.