Spring has finally come with its new colors and warm air, it has melted the ice from our paths, and I’m getting a little drunk on it during our morning walks. I can hear the Peanuts gang singing “Beauty ever-y wheeeere,” and I start taking pictures with my phone of the tight buds and trumpeting daffodils. And then I can’t seem to stop taking pictures, which annoys the dog, Buddha, but I remind him how often I stop to let him nose through his own mysterious realities of scent and aura.
Returning to the kitchen and a cup of tea, I find I want to share the pictures on Facebook. I’ve come to appreciate and use FB in ways that strengthen my connections to people I care for, that make me feel I’m creating or passing on something good (humor, wisdom, knowledge, beauty) to family, all far away; to people who are an important part of my daily life; to people I see less frequently but with whom I share love and respect and shared history; even to a few acquaintances with whom I share something significant, like the memory of an intense poetry workshop or a mutual appreciation for the same writers. I have finally found the right amount of and uses for social media so that my life is better for it.
Sharing just three images seems the right amount – I’m conscious of respecting people’s time and attention, and I believe in the power of careful editing. Many people like the images and say kind things about them: this builds my happiness. I’m sure my pictures are very "Photography 101," and while more knowledge of compositional principles and a better app or camera would likely result in technically better pictures, at this point that isn’t really the point. The effect on me of seeking beauty every morning goes surprisingly deep.
Each morning as we set out, I worry that I won’t find more beautiful images than yesterday’s, and I wonder if I need to put Buddha in the car and drive to find new paths. And yet, before I’ve even reached the end of the same old block, I’ve stopped several times to frame and click. Again, I get giddy with it, every step bringing a new angle and something to capture. Of course, I couldn’t have chosen a better time of year to begin this project. Springtime in suburban Maryland is an embarrassment of riches.
I didn’t always feel this way about spring. I never felt it was “the cruelest month,” but after childhood somehow I never felt completely worthy of it, never exuberantly “puddle-wonderful": more “like a perhaps hand.” The first spring that I met as an adult with pure joy was in the year 2006, pregnant with Bennett. I write about this in my poem "One Easter," and it reminds me that, of the many gifts my children have given me, the way all three of them brought me out of the layers of self-preoccupation to live more immediately, with the core of me open to the wind, is one of the dearest.
When we arrive home from our walks now, I feel unusually full, in the best sense. I am walking in abundance. I’m very new to this practice, but already I am somehow eating less, buying less, needing less. By deliberately noticing beauty, and forcing myself to choose only a few pieces of it to keep and share, I am cultivating the sense that what is available is more than enough. My real self-challenge goes beyond taking and sharing three beautiful things: it is to respond to this burgeoning world like an artist, with both exultation and discipline, and to sharpen my eye so that the beauty is still evident to me over time, when Nature is no longer so obviously lavish and bursting with fists of blooms. It is early in the season, but I hope the lessons hold.
Returning to the kitchen and a cup of tea, I find I want to share the pictures on Facebook. I’ve come to appreciate and use FB in ways that strengthen my connections to people I care for, that make me feel I’m creating or passing on something good (humor, wisdom, knowledge, beauty) to family, all far away; to people who are an important part of my daily life; to people I see less frequently but with whom I share love and respect and shared history; even to a few acquaintances with whom I share something significant, like the memory of an intense poetry workshop or a mutual appreciation for the same writers. I have finally found the right amount of and uses for social media so that my life is better for it.
Sharing just three images seems the right amount – I’m conscious of respecting people’s time and attention, and I believe in the power of careful editing. Many people like the images and say kind things about them: this builds my happiness. I’m sure my pictures are very "Photography 101," and while more knowledge of compositional principles and a better app or camera would likely result in technically better pictures, at this point that isn’t really the point. The effect on me of seeking beauty every morning goes surprisingly deep.
Each morning as we set out, I worry that I won’t find more beautiful images than yesterday’s, and I wonder if I need to put Buddha in the car and drive to find new paths. And yet, before I’ve even reached the end of the same old block, I’ve stopped several times to frame and click. Again, I get giddy with it, every step bringing a new angle and something to capture. Of course, I couldn’t have chosen a better time of year to begin this project. Springtime in suburban Maryland is an embarrassment of riches.
I didn’t always feel this way about spring. I never felt it was “the cruelest month,” but after childhood somehow I never felt completely worthy of it, never exuberantly “puddle-wonderful": more “like a perhaps hand.” The first spring that I met as an adult with pure joy was in the year 2006, pregnant with Bennett. I write about this in my poem "One Easter," and it reminds me that, of the many gifts my children have given me, the way all three of them brought me out of the layers of self-preoccupation to live more immediately, with the core of me open to the wind, is one of the dearest.
When we arrive home from our walks now, I feel unusually full, in the best sense. I am walking in abundance. I’m very new to this practice, but already I am somehow eating less, buying less, needing less. By deliberately noticing beauty, and forcing myself to choose only a few pieces of it to keep and share, I am cultivating the sense that what is available is more than enough. My real self-challenge goes beyond taking and sharing three beautiful things: it is to respond to this burgeoning world like an artist, with both exultation and discipline, and to sharpen my eye so that the beauty is still evident to me over time, when Nature is no longer so obviously lavish and bursting with fists of blooms. It is early in the season, but I hope the lessons hold.
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