Closeup..........

When I looked outside this morning, everything was coated with a crispy white frost, making beautiful little colored sparkles all over the garden as the sun came around the corners and over the trees and lit them up.

Of course I grabbed my camera and headed outside. I wish I had discovered this passion for seeing things close up, many years ago...... I don't find it so easy to get my nose 6 inches off the ground in the middle of the lawn and hang on to any sort of dignity at all! Thank goodness for the fence around the yard, but there is one place people can see through a different fence and I saw one person kind of stutter on their brakes when she saw me stretched out on the frozen pathway at 8.30am. All day long I wondered if she thought I had fallen or if she chuckled at my craziness... ah well.

I got some really lovely photos - but what is really fascinating to me are the thoughts that waft through my brain as I try to get 'The One' perfect picture. Trying to get so close up is not always easy as the depth of field is very narrow - meaning that only very little stays in focus at a time. As I move the camera back and forwards in tiny increments, different parts of what I am looking at become either in clearer or fade into fuzziness.. sometimes creating a totally different picture from the previous one.

And I started thinking.........when we are so close to someone who is working hard at kicking cancer, or any other serious issue, in the teeth - so much else of life gets fuzzy and out of focus. It takes just a little adjustment to see a different part of the picture, to get a different take on the whole. And also in life, sometime standing back or moving in makes it all totally different. This is what makes it so difficult sometimes to really help someone going through tough times. None of us ever stand in exactly the same place as another while looking at the same thing - we all see it from at least a slightly different angle.

When I go for a wide shot with the camera, trying to get a whole leaf or blade of grass into the same photograph, the smaller things go unnoticed. Look at these crystals, look at how they are all made - each one is so precious, so special and so unique. I think of all the years when I never even thought about what frost looks like! When I looked at that lawn after seeing the pictures - it's all so different - its beautiful in a very different way. I think about the wonder of those crystals - see how they don't close on the top? In each crystal the circle at the top is incomplete! Why, I wonder. But for now, I am just enjoying being able to see something I had not before.

It's very much like this since cancer entered our lives. I have seen so many more aspects of life, what's important, what's not. I have learned to look deeper than just the surface of people, to see that everyone has a story that is filled with little, precious, incredible crystals, some in focus today, some in focus tomorrow..... I know this sounds all soppy but it's so true. I have met people who brighten my days just like the sunshine on those gems on the grass....and all of them have put some part of my big picture into focus at some time along the way

I read something yesterday and it's been playing through my mind....... "Does the person create the journey.... or does the journey create the person?"  Interesting thought, I thought. :)

Today Steven worked with us again in the shop. It's really wonderful to have him hanging around for a good few hours on the weekend and interesting to see how fast he learns and just how much he does remember, even with the Gleevec. Today he said a few times that he did not know why he was so tired. He only arrived around lunchtime which was great 'cause I knew he had a relaxing sleep in and a lazy morning - always good for the soul. He had something to eat before he came, but also commented just before we closed at 5pm, that it was strange that he was not hungry yet.

Well. Yes. And no - I did not go into worry mode, but I have to admit that my antennae went up. Why would he be tired? Gleevec not working anymore? Why would he not be hungry? Spleen getting bigger again? Sigh - I know that the chances of this are probably very small and really nothing to worry about at all, but it does throw me back to those days when I did not notice this stuff, or did not think it was important. Pre cancer days. And I am much more aware these days.

Anyway - I don't want Steven to become too sensitive to every ache and pain and day of tiredness or such - but I did call him afterwards and mentioned that he should just not blow off these feelings, but keep tabs on them and tell me if they are still there next week. He assured me that he would. I know that I probably don't even need to mention it to him, but ............well, I am mama.

Anyway - here are the photos of today. And again - it's fascinating to me that natural things in nature are so close to my experiences these days...

love and light

Annie