see as i saw

Do you remember, as a kid, when you got a new toy so coveted that you couldn't even consider leaving home without it?  That's how I'm feeling about my camera.  I'm afraid that if I don't have it with me at all times, I'm going to miss a prime photo opportunity.  And my Android camera just isn't going to instill the same giddy feelings in me.

Since I don't currently have a bag for my camera, I'm tentative about bringing it out into the wild.  Not to mention that I don't have a strap attached to the body, and the cold air makes me afraid of fumbling through gloved hands.  I did go for a little test drive through the Lincoln Park Conservatory today, after an owners manual reading session.


Although the camera managed to catch some interesting shots, I'd attribute that more to the naturally amazing baseline of a dSLR and some luck.  When playing with manual adjustments, I was just fooling around with only a scant idea of why I'd nudge the setting up or down a level.  The good news is that I'm excited to learn; being the nerd that I am, learning and projects are exciting to me.

If anyone happens to know Chicagoland locations that would provide rich atmospheres for test driving my gear, I'm all ears.

Yeah, so I'm 24 hours late.  My brain can barely process the day of the week anyways, so as far as I'm concerned this is a just a late edition of yesterday.  We'll make this mostly visual, for my sanity.

What I do want to mention is that I'm starting to feel pretty assured that I had some sort of past incarnation - and I must have been Mexican.  That seems to be the most viable explanation for my taste in the music of Selena, the art of Frida Kahlo, the language of Spanish, and thinking "Huh, I guess a zydeco band in the food court isn't such a bad idea".

Well, maybe I'm stretching a little bit.  This isn't mean to be a theological discussion forum.  Let's just say it's a hyperbolic way of expressing my appreciation for a culture that isn't innately mine.  As exhausted as I was, and despite the cold front that had San Antonio visitors coveting my North Face, there were a few hours of schlepping around the River Walk and Market Square before I departed.

The early hour of my adventuring and the sub-prime weather thinned the crowds significantly.  Photo opportunities were much easier to come by when the walkways were virtually empty.  With that, I turn you over to the visuals.

The days are getting shorter and I'm feeling short on rest.  So when it's still dark at 6:15am, and my alarm is beckoning me to wake up and work out, I can't summon the motivation.  Approximately four snooze pushes later, I finally open my eyes and consider throwing back the covers.

By that point in time, I have to start the shower routine.  With hair that reaches past mid-back, it's a guaranteed time suck when you consider washing, conditioning and drying it.  It's a good thing I can skip the makeup routine and generally it doesn't matter what I wear to work.  I'm sure I could try showering at night, but I always feel too sleepy and cozy to embark on that journey by the time I think about it.

I partially blame that effect on the darkness seeping in so much earlier.  It's still light when I leave the office, but not for long.  So with daytime coming later, nighttime coming earlier, and a new faster pace of life...my physical activity time log for the week currently equals zero.

It would be helpful if I could ask myself how I managed to fit it into my life before.  But, oh yeah, I didn't really.  There were occasional coed rec sports leagues and two week bursts of running.  Then there was the one time I tried to do a workout via my cable's on-demand videos.  The downstairs neighbor was less than enthused.

There's no end to the articles and studies informing me about the effects of working out on my physical and mental wellness.  And it's not that I don't believe them or don't want to do it, I just haven't figured out how to slot it into my new life schedule.

I'm only slightly kidding when I tell you that I keep thinking to myself, "If I can't even figure out how to fit in a 30 minutes a day to work out, how will I ever have kids or a pet...or even a relationship?"

As soon as I realized that I would be in New York City when 9/11 approached, I found myself wondering if there would be any relevant impact.  Unexpectedly, I saw/heard more about the remembrance of this day on my Facebook feed than I did in the city.  Although I'm sure there were crowds around Ground Zero, the rest of the city felt like business as usual.

At first this struck me as odd.  I wondered why the city wasn't more effusive in its remembrance and memorial.  It finally occurred to me that the city's coping mechanism is much like my own.  When emotions become strong enough, it's easier to keep them close and internal while focusing on life as usual.

Despite the number of people involved in and personally touched by the events of that day, I wasn't directly connected to any of them.  I can't pretend to know the extent of the anguish, grief and fear.  But I do keep going back to July 7, 2005, a day where terrorism was a little too close for comfort in my own life.

Although I was relatively sure of my safety, despite my proximity to the London bombings, I didn't initially take into consideration how my family must have felt.  The phones kept ringing.  They had no idea of my daily routines or my current whereabouts.

As I've gotten older, I've had a deepening sense of how suddenly life can change and how unsure we are of the possible events that will occur at any moment.  The best thing we can do is try to continually move toward the place we want to be with the people who are worth everything to us.  Live, love, and appreciate it all.  Move toward the meaningful and cut out the bull.

I spent three weeks at Playa Sámara, Costa Rica and in those weeks I was constantly on the lookout for an opportunity to capture a photo with a butterfly.  I'm not sure why, it just became a mission, but to no avail.  By the time I spotted one and prepared my camera, the fickle creature had fluttered away.

As I laid out my towel in the garden where I often read (a routine activity in a standard spot), I noticed two monarchs paying heavy attention to a flowering tree.  Initially I thought, "What's the use?  I never get my camera up in time."  But I started going through the motions anyways and managed to capture four shots before they spread their wings and took off.

My mind started working overtime on bridging these occurrences to create a life metaphor, not the first I've come up with.  Ready for it?

Sometimes we stretch and strain ourselves seeking something so specific that it manages to become elusive.  Maybe we chase it or become obsessively focused on it.  But there's an odd tendency for the things that we've been seeking to show up in the standard rhythm of our life.  When you let the obsession lie dormant and focus on a bigger picture, you often end up pleasantly surprised.