Simply Smiling

At the beginning of dawn- Greensboro, North Carolina February ©2008

Early this morning I threw on some clothes stumbled outside to shoot some of the foliage in the early morning sun. From my kitchen table there is this old fence probably older then I am on the side of the carriage road that was partially obscured by vines and sweet peas & for the last several mornings I kept on saying to myself I wanted to go out and capture it or give it a good try, so that's what I did. I stop preparing breakfast and headed out getting what seemed to be a couple of good shots.

As I turned to head back to the house, listening to the crunching gravel somewhat muted by all the dropped mulberries & the grass overtaking the previous owners' attempts to make the carriage row into a driveway & inhaling the perfume of the jasmines in bloom on the 2 bushes in my front yard.

On impulse, I took the notion to get something on film of them which then lead the way to shooting this one tree-like bush that I have shot numerous times before in different seasons. That directed me to a bunch of lavender buttercups I noticed at the foot of the concrete steps leading to my yard and it went from there...

It was wonderful grabbing hold of a moment in the morning light. This morning was one of those times when I am on fire and not a day of "what am I thinking" when I shoot. Later this afternoon and then again at twilight.

I will see if I can latch on to the same spots to see how they differ in the shift of the day.

A different angle…

Atypical moment.

After I returned inside, I found myself simply smiling, not grinning ear to ear. Simply smiling.

Such a small thing it may seem, that made me feel first-class. What if I had bypass this morning like I had all the other mornings getting caught up and never buying out the time to do this?

I grant you for those who work 6:30a is either getting up preparing for work or preparing for family and might not have that luxury, but if you find a moment and there are many of them, its just most of us are rushing with other things and we bypass the moment.

It is just like with the rest of living. We may bemoan that the weight is not coming off as fast as we like, or "I can't help myself" in trying to overcome a deeply ingrained habit or spend an enormous amount of time on something better spent elsewhere, or cannot or will not change what is changeable that we bypass the moment of I did not gain or I have drank more water today, or my eyes are sparkling today, better yet someone else’s eyes sparkle when they laid on us, that maybe somewhere in the world a hungry child got a little food today. Or someone mastered something they saw as futile. Or that someone loved someone today. Or that one grew to quietly accept something they could not change.

All those little moments are there.

And for now this is my moment.

Vios con dios.

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