Tuesday, September 11, 2024
I love to take pictures. Keith is a saint for all of the time he has spent just waiting for me to take pictures of everything – flowers, garbage, kids, you name it, I saw a picture that wanted to be taken. Our kids always say “if we don’t have a picture of it, it didn’t happen.” One year I took a picture of myself every day. I made an album of those and I love it. It was long enough ago that it was quite a radical idea.
Many, many years ago new neighbors moved in behind us. I took a baked good welcome to them and chatted. When the woman asked me what my hobbies were, I said I was a reader, and I really liked to scrapbook. She wrinkled her nose and said she was too busy living her life to take pictures or ever look at them. I froze my smile and ran away. It was nearly 20 years ago, but I remember it like I had been hit by lightning. Was I not living my life if I was taking pictures of it? Keith scoffed and said to put it out of my head. I didn’t. I couldn’t. It was so bizarre to me that I had to think about it. I definitely curtailed my scrapbooking then. I always felt mom guilt about taking time to do something that took so much time and that I liked so much. Her comment supported that guilt.
I still took pictures, because I could not stop. This blog wouldn’t have this name if there were no pictures. I rarely take a picture with the potd in mind – I usually forget all about it until bedtime when Keith says, “did you do the picture of the day?” (for real. I forget every day) – but I still have a picture for the day. We went to a movie today called My Penguin Friend about a guy who rescues an oily penguin. He was a fisherman in coastal Argentina, living in a small house on the beach, and rowing his boat out to fish. It seemed reasonable that he did not have a camera, but when he was taking the penguin out to return him to the ocean, my brain was yelling (YELLING), “Take his picture!” I take tons of pictures to remember what happened. Obviously, this man was not going to forget that time he saved a penguin, but I still needed him to have a picture. I told my brain to stop yelling and the movie went on without a picture.
Later tonight, Keith was working on a drilling project for my sister. He was out in the garage, and I peeked out to see how it was going. I noticed how hot it was and opened a garage door. Keith said to open them all, because he was really hot. I did. Then I went out the front door to take a picture, because it was sooo unusual to have all the doors open. A picture for the day always just appears.
PS OMG I have to go to work tomorrow.
For two hours. At noon.
But still…