Early October, I had this FABulous idea to take on the much-herald picture of the day challenge. I asked myself, How hard could this be? I had been blogging daily for almost a year and had the personality that would be a super fit for this endeavor. Start date was to be Nov 1, 2006 and run until Nov 1, 2007. Piece of cake...
By Nov 5, I was ready to cry "Uncle". Day five, can you believe that? As the worst part was I had dragged someone else into this crazyness. I pushed my way through November. Having a holiday and Black Friday helped my mood and then thinking that December would prove to be a piece of cake, I merrily went on my way. December turned out not to be a piece of cake and I struggled the entire month except for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Some days, the picture came from nowhere and was right in front of me, the school bus being one of those
days. Mission accomplished - didn't have to think about it for 24 more hours. More days than not though, I would jump up at 9PM, remembering that I forgot to take picture, grab my camera and take a picture of ANYTHING. My only so-called goal in this whole project was to learn to be more in the moment and that has been the opposite outcome, to date. For my friend that I dragged into this - she experienced a death in the family in December and still felt the pull of the POTD. WE are both anal - we could not take 2 pictures on Monday and count them as entries for Monday AND Tuesday. Pure legalists - that would never have been acceptable.
January brings it own little party to the mix and I have struggled to keep up. As I started this post, I admit I was ready to give up. Maybe do some sort of on-going picture taking but as for the everyday hereIam-theperfectpictureTAKEMETAKEME, I was done. This was not working out for me. How I was goign to tell my friend that I was bailing out was another matter. As I went back in my POTD folder to pick something for er, I reviewed the November, December and January folders - I saw what I needed to see. November reminded me of Election Day, the Rolling Stones concert and my 55th birthday. Before I opened the December folder, I already knew - I had changed my mind...
Life is short as is my memory and when I can see that in three months worth of photos, I see why I am doing this. I don't expect the struggle to end or even diminish but as in all things that work together, there is a bigger Picture that I don't want to miss. I may only be happy with 1 out of 25 pictures but that is not the point. The point is that not to miss out while waiting for that perfect shot.
On my way to watch my babies today and there will be many favorable opportunities to get today's shot. Tomorrow, maybe I will take a picture at the dentist's office. Maybe by November, all the shots will seem perfect. Now that would be perfection...
