Words

I've really been wanting to get back into the picture a day thing, or even taking pictures at all. I kind of took a break after the photography class. I think the class just overwhelmed me so much both with the realization of all that I DON'T know about taking pictures and it also took me out of the moment. Like, I wasn't grabbing my camera to capture something beautiful or fun anymore because I was worried about aperture and white balance and shutter speed and iso and it all started to feel hard and like I was doing it wrong or that it could be, not that is should be better. So my camera has (for the most part) sat on a shelf above my desk and I stopped taking it places and life has been zooming by.

The whole life zooming by thing? That's why I started this blog in the first place. Combined with the fact that I have a terrible memory and am convinced that I'm headed for an early entry into the Alzheimer's home, my kids' childhood and hence the salad days of my mothering, are flying by. They somehow have become so big. Sometimes when they sleep I go into their rooms at night and in their resting faces I can see the babies that they once were. The way their lips rest, their eyelids flutter, but it's so fleeting. During the day they are big and yet not big. I spent my day running errands without a small person by my side and I missed it. Yes, I have probably blocked out the tantrums and the whining and all the things that make going to the grocery store with a baby/toddler/preschooler sometimes difficult, but overall, I miss them being with me as I go about my day. Somedays I feel like I don't have a chance to connect with Miss E at all, she gets home from school at almost 4, eats a snack, wants some quiet time, plays with her brother and then it's dinner, bath and bed before she and I have had any quality time to chat or just BE together. I find myself missing her as well.

In an effort to get back into a 365, and to just get some of this down for the kids, I'm going to try one of those photo challenges that keep popping up on blogs. It's basically a photo prompt for each day of the month, and I'll try and title the post with the prompt. Although of course since I don't like being told what to do and my Virgo sensibilities toward complication and organization have to be pleased,  I have devised a plan to use prompts from Jan and Feb as I see fit.

Today it is "words" so I took a picture of this little love sign. I found this in the 4th grade at a Halloween carnival hidden in a bin of straw and have kept it since then. Every place I have lived (I think 12 so far!) it has come with me to be displayed on a dresser or a shelf or sometimes stuck in a box for a year or two. Right now it sits on the shelf above my computer. It is my daily reminder that love - all forms of it - is the most important thing. Love of your family, of yourself, of friends, of strangers, of the earth, of life, in your heart and in your brain, it is the most important thing that we humans can do.