I didn’t want to take the picture of the vibrant yellow building. It was so darn bright—both the color of the building and the color of the day. The sun shone full force but it was chilly as the wind whipped around my bare legs while I studied how to best take the picture.

I didn’t want to take the picture of the Abundant Life Church. The orange clay seemed all wrong. Not fertile ground for an abundant life. That dirt red clay reminded me of my struggle with the teachings of my small town Southern Baptist upbringing.

I didn’t want to take the picture of the silos, because well . . . it’s silos. I’ve lost or maybe just passed through my joy over taking pictures of barns and silos. Still, I climbed the roadside bank and squatted low to make the picture through the wispy yellow flowers. When I got home I tried to look up their name. I think it’s St. Johnswort, though I can’t be sure. I can say that the scene reminded me of my mother who taught me how to be good at making bouquets from roadside flowers.

I didn’t want to take the picture of the pink magnolia blossoms. I was trying to take a picture of something else and they just happened to be near. I took them to relieve the pressure of trying so hard.

There are days to walk away and put the camera aside. And there are days to press on. To trust that my creative spirit is growing even when I seem to be dormant.

. . . where a house once stood

there are many places like this where an old driveway leads to nothing, where trees make a circle around the place where something once stood, where an old well sits nestled in a briar patch, where the gate still stands, and there are only ghosts of what once was . . . bittersweet

This last year has been a difficult one for us all, in so many ways. With the larger issues of the virus and social justice in all its forms, I’ve felt as though I somehow didn’t have the right to whine or complain about my relatively small problems. And yet this year has been one of health issues for me. I feel as though I’ve been on a merry-go-round of digestive issues, and migraines, and chronic back and neck pain. I’ve had pain from head-to-toe at one time or another during this last year. And it’s taken its toll. My emotions are closer to the surface these days because I haven’t felt like myself in a long while.

Last night I awoke to a pounding headache on my right side. I took the prescribed medicine and waited. And then waited some more. Finally, this morning the pain lifted and with it came a kind of euphoria. I am full of energy this morning. It’s easy to be optimistic when there is no pain. I take full advantage of this window of ease. I clean the bathrooms and water the plants and putter around the house. Grateful beyond measure for this small window of light.

I can feel that I am in a season of transition. And it’s hard. I don’t want to to make the pictures I’ve always made, and yet the new ones are not easily forthcoming. I sign up for courses and then change my mind. I erase whole folders of pictures. I lift the camera up to my eye and simply look, moving the camera side to side and then up and down as though searching for a moving target. I am not looking for some thing, but rather some sentiment. I am unsettled and this feeling keeps me up at night. I keep telling myself that these are growing pains.

I am hard on myself, and then forgiving. The pictures are expressions of self and I try to be kind to them.