I don’t mind winter. As the saying goes, ‘There’s no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing’. As someone who has a birthday not long after New Year, I feel a little bit offended when I hear someone say they ‘hate January’. I’m sceptical about the idea of The Most Depressing Day Of The Year being the third Tuesday of the year or whatever.
But – you knew there was a but coming, right? – this year, I have to admit I’ve been close to waving the white flag right up in January’s face and trying to hibernate until March. It’s not the weather – I’ve only had to scrape the car a couple of times and we’ve barely seen snow. I’ve had some early wins – training for a 10k has been going pretty well and I’ve been reading more books.
I can’t really put my finger on it, but I haven’t really got out of the blocks yet in 2015 and, now that it’s February, I’ve got to do something about it before much more of the year passes me by.
A saying that keeps swimming forward in my brain is ‘Do the thing that’s in front of you’. From a literal point of view it doesn’t make much sense unless you’re staring at the dishes or a pile of ironing and, frankly, it could even be a bit embarrassing (not to mention illegal). But, to me right now, it means ‘just do something, anything’ to try to move forward.
Just a few minutes spent musing on the things that are in front of me revealed that I’m ready to return to a passion of mine that I have been neglecting for almost six months. Photography. I broke my favourite lens in August and I hardly picked up my camera after that. But Santa brought me a brand spanking new 50mm prime lens and it is something of a disgrace that I haven’t even taken it out of the box until now.
Kid B does not like getting his photo taken unless he can make a daft face, which is pretty much all he does. Kid A, however, is more than happy to pose. A blanket pinned to the wall in a south-facing room served as a studio since it’s too cold to leave the house, and off we went.
There weren’t many keepers among the first shots I took this year, but it’s a start. I like this one where she isn’t even looking at the camera, as it shows off her ridiculously long eyelashes of which I have been simultaneously jealous and heart-burstingly in awe since the day she was born.
There’s nothing quite like the feeling when you pick up your camera and start shooting. That little shiver of possibility and the promise that today might be the day when you take your best-ever shot. It never leaves you and it never will, because every day it’s completely possible that you might.
Do Not Touch The Lobsters 