Wherever I Am

I’m not sure, but it seems as though a few people have a greater tolerance for risk than most of us do.  These are the people we read about in newspapers and magazines. The people who fly straight into the moving picture screens of life, with a cigar in one hand, and a devil-may-care attitude in the other. We all know who some of these people are. Maybe we know some of them personally. Although I see much to be admired in their behavior and accomplishments, I realize, now more than ever, that this is simply not me.  

No, I’ve always been the responsible one.  The one who played it safe and kept the home fires burning.  While my risk-taking friends were out on day one burning down the proverbial house only to build a whole new one on day two or flying through the air with the greatest of ease, or hastily navigating a smooth landing for themselves somewhere, I’ve been busy keeping a steady hand on the tiller and making sure the little boat that carries us all makes it safely to the other side.  In the overall scheme of things, we need to have both kinds of people working in this life:  the risk takers and the fire tenders, but I recognize that the risk takers tend to make more headlines. 

There’s a reason for that, and I think it’s simply that there are fewer of them. Most of us are, in the words of the famous photographer and costume designer Sir Cecil Beaton, creatures of the commonplace, slaves of the ordinary.  While my life may seem to fall neatly into one or both of those categories, I will say I wouldn’t trade my life for his.  What my life lacks in excitement, awards, and world renown, it more than makes up for in my sense of connection to the things I consider most important:  a loving relationship with my husband, my children, and my community.  My community includes not only my neighbors, but people I have worked with, school colleagues and the like, and extends to include a close relationship with the natural world, as I am able to experience it through nature photography.

I’m grateful for the experience that photography has brought into my life and how it’s opened my eyes to things I would never have seen, if not through the lens of my camera. I’m not a person who spends an enormous amount of time learning or perfecting new Lightroom or Photoshop techniques.  I know what I like.  I prefer a very natural appearance to my photos over something that is more highly processed.  I also don’t like to spend my time on that because mastering technology or creating photos that are art for the sake of art,  isn’t the driving force behind what I do.  That’s not to say that some of my photos are not artistic.

I do what I do to commune with nature, to take in the serenity, and to allow physical, emotional, and spiritual healing to take place.  It really is more about allowing than pushing to make something happen.  I don’t go out with a set idea in my mind about what kind of image I wish to produce, but rather, I try to use meditation and mindfulness techniques to alert my vision as to what there is to record.  I’ve trained myself to look for patterns in light and shadow as well as other aspects of the natural environment and in that sense, I’m highly focused when I’m out doing my nature photography walks.  The best way to describe it is to say there is a blending of learned skills and serendipity at work.

The photo that you see attached to this post, is a photo I took just after sunrise the day after the winter solstice.  I got up early that morning, before sunrise, and walked the trail that goes around this lake at a local city park.  As the sun rose over the eastern horizon, it began to light up the shore of the lake and the lake itself.  I was delighted to see that small ice crystals on the surface of the lake were catching the light of the rising sun.  It had snowed overnight, and some of the snow stuck to the ice crystals creating tiny snowballs resting on the very thin sheet of ice still forming on the lake.  The ice-covered lake, as calm as it ever could be, reflected the auburn-tinted reeds, trees and boulders along the south shore of the lake.  I couldn’t have planned for this!  When I went out early that morning, I wasn’t sure what to expect.  But I know that wherever I am, God is, and will make it’s presence known. 

Could I have done this at an earlier phase of life?  Not on a workday!  Not when I was commuting to work, or helping my kids get ready for school, or dropping them off early in the morning, making sure they had on their jackets and their mittens, and had their homework in their backpacks.   My mornings were lived in one big rush for a couple of decades there, which makes me appreciate the silence and beauty of a Thursday morning sunrise over the lake all that much more.