Ten Days

Ten days - one dress - several hundred photographs!

I've had mixed feelings about the first tenth of my 100 Day Dress Challenge.  For whilst I am loving wearing the dress and subsequent liberation from the ongoing question of "What am I going to wear today?" I'm pretty sure that stressing over the daily photographic evidence was not the intended outcome, and certainly doesn't fit with premise of having more time to do the things you love.  It is, after all, not a photographic competition - but by the time I am a couple of days in, I have a sneaking suspicion that, for me, it might as well be.  And when, on Day 4 I discover that fog is forecast for the following morning and message a friend to ask if she'd be up for a 8.30am woodland photoshoot to catch the atmosphere, I think I'd be hard pushed to convince anyone otherwise.

Luckily for me, said friend was indeed prepared to take on the job and off we went into the woods in search of the perfect shot.  Sephie is a talented photographer, and I know I am not alone by being in awe of her ability to notice when to step away and capture the moment.  The perfect companion for Sunday morning's mission - except it's hard to nail that air of nonchalance when your subject is a 50 year old woman who suddenly decides to take it upon herself to sit four feet off the ground in a tree or stand rigid atop a fallen trunk, rooted to the spot by a heady mix of vertigo and varifocals.  "But at least it wasn't freezing cold!" I hear Debbie cry, in protest at the conditions she was supposed to 'work' under yesterday as I draped my coat over her arm, deposited my phone in her hand, stuffed the battery pack it was attached to into her pocket and then gave her two dogs to hold whilst I stood against some interesting brickwork and tried to perfect the look of staring off into the middle distance (like someone who couldn't quite work out what the not so faint odour was, emanating from the corner of the shelter in which we stood) only to be told, when looking through the pictures, that she hadn't managed to make my face look thin.  "Oh! So it's not just me that gets accused of that?!" Comments Mr L when I tell him the tale later over a cup of tea, grateful that so far he's only had to take one picture, of my back, and even that was more complicated than it sounds.  However, perhaps your sympathies should lie with the father and daughter I accosted on their dog walk asking if they would take my picture, hastily explaining that it was important that you could see my dress, as I began unzipping my coat...

There is a part of me that is screaming, you can't keep this up P! Just submit the photo's at the end in an email, simple.  There is a bigger part of me that is loving the challenge.  It makes me smile that I've climbed a tree and balanced on a tree trunk, even if I couldn't walk across it.  I'm trying hard to replace my panic about 'tomorrow's photo', with a trust that it will unfold for me, I just have to stay receptive and grab the opportunities coming my way, dashing up from my desk to make the most of a sunbeam, taking the dogs on a different walk to take advantage of the blue sky, and making arrangements to go on new adventures with my fabulous friends who are (for now at least!) willing to be my photographers.  But perhaps most importantly, because photography is so dependent on the available light, it is forcing me to make decisions in the here and now and live in the moment.

If someone had told me years ago that my sister and I would be sharing mindfulness quotes I wouldn't have believed them but, as the years pass and we morph into the same headspace accompanied with an ever deepening sibling bond, it is where we're at. Thank you for sending this my way this week Helen - I love you sis.

What we call the past is just a memory, an image, an echo arising in present.  The future is also just a thought arising now.  And in this moment - this - not the one that just passed you by, but this bright moment of consciousness - here - there is an opportunity.  The only opportunity to make contact with your life. Seize it.  

Sam Harris.