blur

This is what my world looks like when I wake up in the morning. Everything blurry, all hard edges softened by my myopic eyes. This haze lasts the length of a stretch and then I reach for my glasses and suddenly everything comes into focus. Like magic.

Sometimes, I feel as though I go through life without my glasses on. Everything is fuzzy and doesn’t quite look like I know it should. I don’t know how it’s supposed to look, exactly, but I know something is missing, some detail that is crucial to the big picture. The same way I can almost make out the last line of the eye test. The shapes are unclear but it’s just enough for me to detect the L E F O P D C T if I squint a little.

Sadly, there are no glasses strong enough for the great mysteries in life. Nobody will ever know with certainty what the answers are to the big questions. It’s all a bit of a blur. Our only job is to show up and pay attention to these moments, because they are all we really have. The rest – the future, the worries, the fears… are concepts. They are not real. Now is what is real and my worries about the future or my past regrets could rob me of this now: the way my feet are cozy in fluffy slippers and my fingernails are painted red and I like the sound they make against the keyboard and the coffee is percolating on the stove top and the delicious smell is making its way to the living room and my husband is sleeping softly in the next room. This is all I know for certain, right now.

So lately, I’ve been trying to practice mindfulness. Slowing down, breathing, not letting thoughts and emotions and worries hijack my present moment.  And the more I practice, the better I SEE. And there is so much to see when I step out of my head and focus on the present moment… even if I have to squint a little.

And perhaps therein lies my love for photography – it’s a snapshot of the moment, a portal into mindfulness, a reminder of how ephemeral it all is. You click the shutter and the light changes and the moment is gone.

“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.” – Anaïs Nin