It is entirely possible to be still on a busy street in an urban area. To feel like a child again, experiencing everything with delight and wonder. It doesn’t matter how much time I have, which lens I have with me, what the weather may be or even what the light is like. Taking pictures always restores me.

"Mindful photography means stopping, allowing yourself to be still to make contact with your present experience, to observe your relationship to it, which in turn intensifies your experience and presence allowing you to absorb it without trying to improve or alter it." —Paul Sanders

 

I wish I had words to express

how these pictures make me feel,

why I took them in the first place.

How I didn’t love them at first.

Is love at first sight even a real thing?

But how when I waited and rested with them,

they came calling to me.

As treasures of an ordinary day,

and a heart broken wide open

by the tenderness of the seasons,

the undeniable passing of time,

and the beauty of it all.

I’m giving myself over to this season where I need to rest and recalibrate. I might start doing one thing, then realize I need to do something else (or nothing at all).

Instead of trying so hard to to change, I’m getting off the self-improvement treadmill. And asking myself, What if this is just me? Could that be enough?

I am gathering my thoughts and protecting my work by giving it time and love. Accepting that views through windows are my way of calling for connection.

 

there is something deeply lonely
in this place
rooms waiting for guests
like people who say yes
when they want to say no
like pretending everything is okay
when it is not
like struggling for love
by sacrificing our true selves
when all we want is to be known
and to belong