Some photography projects have definite timelines. They start and end based on an event, a journey, or a story. But others meander along taking their own good time. This is the way it is for my project, Signs of the Times. I started the project back in 2012, or at least that’s when the first picture was taken (the one of the 2400 Diner). The collection has grown slowly and continues to surprise and delight me. We pulled into the truck stop to turn around and there it was, the sign on top of the building in big red letters . . . SERVICE DEPT.

 

I don’t want to ‘lean in’—I want to lie down.
—Ali Wong

I’m a big proponent of rest and I’ve been taking time to lie down for 10 minutes in the middle of the day and do nothing. I’ve finally learned an important lesson: Rest allows for sustainable productivity and creativity.

I have been incredibly stubborn in my belief that the answer to every problem in life is to work more, try harder, dig deeper, never stop moving. And no matter how hard any friend or loved one tried to turn me around and show me a better way, I just didn’t listen. I wasn’t ready. There was so much pain to work through, first, before I could begin to let go and rest.

But I am in a new place now and there is so much room to breathe.

Do you know that magical feeling when you are in the right place at the right time? Doing what you are meant to do? Those times when you have goosebumps because life is so deeply meaningful?

When I tiptoe through the grass, wet from last night’s rain, in the yard of the house with the huge blooming magnolia tree, it takes my breath away. How does this tree thrive in the middle of chaos? The house is abandoned. The yard untended. Branches broken from the heavy snow of January. How much beauty can I hold? All of it, I hope.

When I walk around the old country cafe, painted sherbet pink, I love the lines and shapes. I am puzzled by the two small air conditioning units side-by-side. Maybe this was in the heart of the kitchen where temperatures run high?

Placing these two photos next to one another, I feel spring in my bones. So much has changed and shifted since I started trusting my body.

Renewed Daily

This sketchbook isn’t about selecting the “best” photos, it’s about curating and bringing together the photos that hold meaning for me, those that tell a story I want to remember.

Fridays are “date days” and we love to wander. Gas is expensive so we don’t travel far. We start out at Aquia Landing. The conditions are not perfect for picture-taking, but they are perfect for relaxing and recharging. A nice older gentleman waves to let me know there are Eagles nearby, in case I might want to take a picture. I smile and thank him, and turn back to the duck blind off shore. We pull over at the church and sit for a while on a bench in the sunshine. The church is situated on a bend, as Brooke Road meanders through Stafford county. The pictures I take are nothing special and everything special at the same time.

We make our way on back roads to Culpeper. I ask Siri for directions, and she says, “I’m sorry, but I don’t know where that is.” We crack up laughing, because everyone around here knows where Culpeper is. We split a chicken sandwich for lunch and stop in an Antique mall.

Today is just the right amount of a good thing.