Just over a year ago I was having a really shit time. To say it was all about a break up would be stretching the truth a little but it certainly started that way, and the wrong, ripping grossness that is that time became snowballed with feelings of dissatisfaction with myself and my life and of horror at years of solitude stretching in front of me like a barren forest path and it ended when I grudgingly woke one day to the thought that perhaps it would be better if I was not alive any more.
I have, fortunately, enough sense inside me and inside my wonderful friends to not let myself have too much headway with thoughts such as this, and it was luckily a momentary thing, but it did shock me a little. More shocking, and more persistent than this, was the realisation that I had forgotten how to like my life.
So I decided I needed to be reminded, and that I was just the person to do that.
I began to take a photo a day, the only rule being it had to be a photo of something that I dug or something I loved or something that made me smile. The results can be viewed here.
365 photos of flowers and skies and streets and trees and friends and strangers later, yesterday I posted the last. The day before I got confused momentarily and thought I had finished already, and was surprised at my feelings of loss. I felt like I was parting with someone I love. Which is a bit stupid when you remember that I’m talking about a photo blog but I’ve grown so used to looking about me wherever I am and writing captions in my mind and falling in love with all the small but wonderful things that are everywhere around me. And I will miss it.
What I guess I wanted to get down here, as well as a huge thank you to the world for its continued brevity and charm, is some sort of notice that it worked. I once again dig my life to the point that it could seem irritating and self indulgent to those around me. I am, and, dear reader I suspect you are, surrounded by, showered in, positively crowded with joy. It is there, small and large, ugly and glorious, magenta and yellow, clouded and bright, foreign and dear. I am not making this up.
Things I didn’t ever get a photo of but wish I could:
My nephew walking or the sound of my nieces voice
The perfect magnolia flower (I know it’s still out there)
A young man helping an older lady with a walker onto a tram
Old men greeting each other in the street with a handshake and a grin
The dude in the popcorn suit who freestyle rapped at me in a bar
Ladies with fairy lights inside the bottom of their delightful, vintage frocks
Any of the life changing, heart aching music that is like oxygen to me daily
Smiles on strangers faces that are oddly familiar to me
The majority of totally awesome sandwiches eaten
The night the moon was apparently really frigging huge, even though I didn’t actually see the biggest part
So many clouds in so many wonderful, decadent skies
The smell of morning
What I’ve learnt:
I have not lost the near hysterical love for clouds I fostered as a child.
I am if anything, a little too blessed.
I am not as gungho about taking photos of strangers as I would have hoped.
Peoples faces are lovely.
Noticing things takes up a good deal of time.
The camera resolution on the iPhone 4 is just so much better than the 3.
Smiling is helpful and just about the easiest thing to do in the world.
Food is totally fucking great, though it’s possible photographing it makes me a wanker…
and
There is always something.
Thanks everyone and everything, I hope to take a photo of you all at some point.
C.
There we go!
It’s all for you, Kate.
I love you. I think I’ve probably seen… 28% of the photos. But I spent almost all of the time since I saw the first one hoping that I, one day, would be one. Because this is such a FLIPPING FANTASTIC thing. And if you put the photos and the comments into a book I would buy it. Really.
I love you, Nunchucks.
You know what? I have loved all your photos. Every one. I haven’t connected with all of them the same way, but I’ve loved that you’ve done it. And I especially love the ones with anecdotes.
This post here is beautiful and full of magic and you make me weep with the loveliness of how you write, and a little bit of understanding that I won’t have the same way of writing-how-I-feel that captures it as well as you do every time.
You’re gorgeous. And marvellous. Thank you.
Char- you know I adore you. I eat your attention like gravy on biscuits.
Gog-you made me cry. Love you.
This is a really lovely post! Just the thing to read on a Tuesday morning 🙂
Thanks for that beautiful burst of gratefulness. isn’t life just superb?
Holy flippin congrats to you!!!! *s*
I always knew you could write and do it well. Combining it with photos is so excellent. Congratulations on baring it all for us. You are so blessed and I am blessed from knowing you and being a part of your life.
You’re great and I’ve loved looking at your photos. Photographing food definitely does NOT make you a wanker. Food is fricking awesome and deserves to photographed!
Great stuff: you are fantastic and i miss you!