Missing

Yesterday, my spouse took my son out for a few hours which left me with an open afternoon.  It’s rare that I have a few hours down time, time to do something that desperately needs to get done – like the bathrooms.  Yes, the bathrooms need to be cleaned, and dinner needed to be cooked and there was laundry to be done.  But I didn’t feel like doing any of that, I had time to myself and what I most desperately needed was to do something fun, something that might make me forget about the growing list of chores etched in the back of my mind.  Something that would distract me from all the “you shoulds” and all the “you musts.” But what to do?  I couldn’t go far. They weren’t going to be gone long and I didn’t want to spend most of my free time stuck behind the wheel of a car getting somewhere just in time to turn around.  It was a nice day, not too cold and the sun was out.  I wanted to be outside, but where?  Then I remembered the word challenge.  Missing!  An assignment for fun.  I had to take pictures of things that were missing.  That’s what I would do.  I grabbed my camera and jumped in my car. It was only a ten minute drive to the local bike path.  I knew it would still be covered in snow, so I wore my boots not really caring how good or bad the walking conditions would be.  I had walked the path numerous times in the past but never covered in snow and never with my camera.  I didn’t remember seeing anything picture worthy, but I figured if I looked hard enough I was bound to find something.  Besides, even if I found nothing, how could I go wrong with walk?

Missing – hmmmmmm…I thought about it as I drove.  How does one take a picture of something that is missing, if it’s missing it isn’t there?  It sort of seemed to defy logic, until I pulled into the parking lot and stretching out in front of me was a baseball field.  Of course, I chuckled to myself. Covered in a thick blanket of snow, no one would be crazy enough to be out there playing ball.  Missing were the ball players.  And missing from the playground were the kids.  No one sat on the benches dotting the bike path, and not surprisingly, there were no bikers on the path.  Yes, I had walked that path hundreds of times and never once had I ever seen anything that made me say, “Gosh, I wish I had remembered my camera.”  But a slight tweak of my purpose offered me a completely different perspective.  What seemed uninteresting and commonplace in the past offered me a new opportunity.  I got to work – or fun.  Yes, it was fun, not work, taking pictures of things in a way that might not seem too dull or boring to someone who might at some point be kind enough to at least glance at them.  But it wasn’t just missing pictures I took.  Trees and a frozen stream – that in warmer weather is never anything greater than a tiny trickle - also caught the attention of my camera.  The walk itself was also relaxing.  Frozen solid in some places and melting, mushy and up to mid-calf in others it wasn’t an easy walk, but fun and easy aren’t always synonymous. 

The bathrooms still need to be cleaned, we at a late dinner and the laundry basket – is there such a thing as an empty laundry basket? – is still full, but I can’t say the afternoon wasn’t productive.   I got a few decent shots, I got some fresh air, a bit of exercise, but perhaps most importantly, I got to mentally unwind and recharge my battery for the weeks ahead.  So thanks for the word, the mini-unofficial assignment, for it taught me that even the mundane can be interesting if only you angle your perspective (or lens) accordingly.