Filed under: Letting Go, Photography, Small Things That Take on Epic Proportions
I lent my boyfriend my camera when he went on a short trip to Ohio. “It’s just a few days,”I thought, “I won’t miss it.” I knew there’d be lots of moments there that he’d want to photograph. I’d be busy. I knew I wouldn’t make the time to go out on a photo shoot. And the flowers outside our house, the uncurling new fern, they could wait until his return for further documentation.
So now, just 24 something hours after he’s left, I find myself seeing potential pictures in everything I look at. Longing after a camera to take them with, instead of being happy to just enjoy the images I see. It’s not that I miss the camera. If it were here on the shelf right next to me, I might not necessarily glance in its direction during the next couple of days. But I’m hyper aware of its absence. Wanting what I don’t have just because I don’t have it. And so it goes.
I look forward to seeing his photographs.
The Hibiscus and the Butterfly
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl.
We had just made it to the changing rooms when the lifeguards blew their whistles and shouted, “Out of the pool! There’s thunder!” Our smiles turned into frowns.
“It’s not fair,” said the older sister, age 14.
“I know,” I commiserated.
“Well, at least we’re still dry,” said the younger sister, age 11, as we walked back to the car. Dark clouds were forming overhead.
“Yeah,” I laughed, “Who said we even wanted to go swimming anyhow. Swimming’s no fun at all.”
“Yeah right,” said the older sister sadly.
So, we sat at a bench at the Dairy Queen eating glorious mixtures of cream ice cream and chocolate.
“Wouldn’t it be funny,” said the younger sister, “if it rained people from the sky?”
“I’m not sure,” I replied, “That might hurt. Or maybe people would just end up in funny places. Like maybe you’d be on top of the tall Dairy Queen sign out there. I can see you shouting, ‘When I said I wanted to go to Dairy Queen this isn’t what I meant!’”
She giggled.
I grabbed us more napkins.
Her older sister sat with intense focus trying to find a Prima J video for the little sister on YouTube on my iPhone.
It started to splatter rain just as we made plans to leave.
The older sister, with a shirt balled up above her head stood out in the rain while the younger sister and I made a mad dash for the car.
“The rain is so weird,” she said finally joining us, “It tickles the skin but not really.”
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl.
I should be working on a paper that I care about. I’ve been researching it and reflecting on it for a couple months now. I worked on it all day yesterday and didn’t even leave the house. I think I’m just at that point where the dream of writing something eloquent and fabulous that makes people go, “Wow” has to surrender to the reality of just getting it done. And worrying about how fabulous it is or isn’t after the words are on the page in a coherent fashion.
And so I here I sit at the dining room table where I sat yesterday. And before I get back to it, I think it’s time to make a list to help re-fashion a day I spent almost entirely inside a house sitting in the exact same location just trying to get closer to a rough draft.
Some lovely parts from yesterday:
* An hour’s worth of yoga in the morning on my mat on the living room floor in between the TV and the coffee-table.
* Pineapple facial scrub in the shower
* Warm black tea with evaporated milk and agave nectar to wake me up
* A green plant, that I thought might bite the dust, still proudly alive and enjoying its new position in the center of the table
* A break for lunch where I got delve back into the joys of reading “The Hakawati”
* Getting “good” mail from the postwoman instead of bills
* My mother agreeing that she would be the perfect person to read this rough draft when it’s done.
* An evening visit from a friend involving conversations about yogurt-making, cats, Russian fairy-tales, airline companies and trusting strangers
Okay, now to get back to that paper.
Filed under: Actions, Dusk, Love, Moments of Grace, Small Things That Take on Epic Proportions
Imprints
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl.
The first story I’ve really felt in months happened on my birthday. A very hot, eye-squintingly bright day in June. Into a quotidian experience of supermarket shopping and errands, I blended a birthday bike ride to a macrobiotic restaurant and some happy yoga on a mat in the living room. I spent the early evening accidentally burning cookies with the young woman who I mentor.
The actual story began when I was bringing her home. Her mother, Jane, and younger sister, Susie, were at a pharmacy a few blocks from their apartment. We pulled into the parking lot and walked into the story to find them. I chatted blithely with their mother and hugged my mentee goodbye. Before I turned to leave, Susie bounded towards me and gifted me an exuberant hug. “Happy birthday!” she announced smiling as she hugged harder and stepped all her body weight onto my flip-flops with her sneakers.
I heard a little crunching sound and winced slightly all the while grinning and saying goodbye.
I began the trek down the linoleum towards the brightly lit exit. I glanced down and saw blood oozing out of my big left toe. Susie called out my name and I turned back to see her performing a hyper dance for my benefit. I gave her a thumbs up sign and walked out, watching as blood colored my whole toenail a bright red.
The sky was the glowing blue of dusk. Birds congregated on telephone wires. Car lights streamed down the thoroughfare. I got in my vehicle and eased out of my flip flops. I found myself driving home barefoot having forgotten to check out the toe. Every time I pressed down on the clutch, I felt its persistent pain. For all I knew I was dripping blood all over the carpet.
I felt in awe about the experience though. Just sort of jolted into feeling part of something so much bigger than myself. I was the object of a gesture full of such love and meaning that in turn caused me pain. I kept thinking about how this is the sort of thing we must do all the time to each other – just because we imbue our actions with such well-intentioned kindness doesn’t mean they don’t also hurt the receiver a little. And really, even though I now had a potentially cracked toenail, I couldn’t harbor any ill will towards the child who had just expressed her love so sweetly and fully.
Back home I sat on the side of the bathtub washing away the blood under the tap and telling the story over and over again to my boyfriend as he presented me with a band-aid. I was trying to turn the experience this way and that to possibly shake even more out of it. And as I limped back out to the car so we could go see Up in 3-D, I felt so much love for this little girl and her happy birthday hug.
Truth is, had it just been a hug, I might have forgotten it by the time I had left the store. Now, don’t get me wrong. This is not an invitation for everyone to come step on my toes (please don’t!) but perhaps more of an ode to these moments that give us a heightened awareness of the beautiful intentions of others no matter how they actually play out in reality.
