I really don’t think of myself as a photographer.  I am a journaler.  I have been a journaler for a long time.  For most of that time, I have relied on words to tell my story, to create the picture of who, what, and where I was physically and emotionally at the moment in which my pen and  paper met.  It wasn’t until about five years ago that my camera joined in the process of sharing  my story.  I have to admit that I am still more comfortable and confident expressing myself with words, but every now and then, the images that make there way to my camera are far more powerful than any words that I might find to illustrate the me that is in that moment.  So was the case today.

A little over half way through January and I am feeling pretty good about where I stand with the goals that I set for myself in 2017.  A photo a day every day, regular blogging, knitting, and being intentional about how I choose to nourish my body, mind, and spirit.  I can say with confidence that I am on track.  But, I have not been working; I’ve been enjoying a four week break between semesters.  That came to an end today as my spring semester started at 7:30 this morning.  All of the sudden, I don’t feel in control.  Thirty plus hours a week that I have had to take care of me are now gone.  I do love my job, but I also love cooking, writing, taking photos, and sleeping.  I fear that sleeping will get the short end of the stick here now that I have less “free” time.  My coffee intake likely will increase proportionately to the decrease in my sleep time. Lol!  I intend to work toward finding a healthy balance between work, play, and sleep, but it may take me a few weeks…or months.

Today the Capture Your 365 photo prompt was bubbles.  Being the first day of school, I didn’t have much time to give to thinking about or taking the photo.  I figured I’d pull out the bubbles from under the kitchen sink when I got home, wave the wand around, and see what I could capture.  And that would be good enough for today.  One thing I have learned as I’ve gotten older is that today’s best is different from tomorrow’s or yesterday’s best and that is OK.  I have made a concerted effort to to stop worrying about yesterday and tomorrow and focus on being fully present to today.  Getting to this point has been a rough journey, but well worth the discomfort caused by rugged terrain along the way.

I was grateful that my husband offered to help me this afternoon by being the bubble blower.  Blowing the bubbles myself and then trying to focus and shoot requires much more coordination than I had this afternoon.  Oh wait…who am I kidding?  It requires more coordination than I have any afternoon!  Anyway, he stood and blew bubbles and I moved around looking for an interesting angle, something that resembled an intentionally composed photo.  I finally decided that I wanted a photo that looked like he was holding a bubble in his hand.  The bubbles were reflecting the trees in our yard, kind of cool; I could live with that being my picture for today.

I was having trouble focusing because I was tired and it was windy. So, I set my camera to continuous shooting, which gave me six shots per second.  Please! One shot in focus!  That’s all I wanted.  In my first few attempts I got some “OK” shots, but not exactly what I was hoping for.  Finally, I was happy with this shot.

After cleaning up all of my bubble mess, I sat down at the computer to pull the photo off of my SD card.  Then I looked at the next frame.  It was this.

Boom!  Right there, with these two photos, is one of those cases where photos do a much better job of describing my today than words will.  The first photo is what life has been like for the past sixteen days of this year – gentle, contained, focused, manageable.  And then its back to work and literally my bubble is burst.  No longer can I hold things together in the same way that I did yesterday.  As close as it may still feel, yesterday is gone.  Today is all that there is.  So today, I must find a way to embrace my burst bubble.  And tomorrow it will be gone and all will be new again.  As the quote by Pema Chodron that I included on the second photo says,

Impermanence is a principle of harmony. When we don’t struggle against it, we are in harmony with reality.

So very true!

Here’s to all that today has to offer!

Happy Tuesday from Texas.