Well… Friday. I do love Fridays. At the brink of the weekend, there is that anticipation that wonderful possibilities lie ahead …and even despite the promising sunshine this morning giving way once again to hazy blue-grey clouds, the weekend beckons, and life is a beautiful thing. Thank God for Fridays.
I promised to explain the random photograph I published earlier this week: I decided to challenge myself to a simple photographic project, the focus of which being everyday details that I enjoy. I was inspired by this post on VagueMemories where the author posted a photo of a familiar building. It made me think of my commute and how I love to gaze at random things in the train or out of the window. One thing I love is details. Beautiful details. Patterns. Forms. And sometimes the familiar is the most beautiful. The things I pass by every day, objects that are anchored in the landscape of regular routes that I take. I just love that opportunity for watching the world go by.
An old film photo from over 10 years ago. A familiar detail. A detail still firmly etched on my mind.
I remember reading an article some time ago about how we have lost the art of journeying. With all our modern technology, we tend to focus on the destination. Commuters read or stop up their ears with repetitive beats from various electronic devices. Our minds have to be continuously occupied. We fail to hear the sounds of the journey – doors opening and closing, the footsteps and shuffling of other passengers, the train rumbling over the tracks (although in London, I’m sure you can still hear that over anything else you might be listening to!) We have become unfamiliar with our travel scenes and most definitely avoid eye contact with other passengers.
I certainly am not one of those commuters. I am the one that looks like I am totally wasting time day-dreaming or staring into space. I treasure the time and space that commuting gives me, to mull over the day and migrate my focus away from work. I also love walking (although not in the recent heavy rain) and discovering beautiful things on a well-trodden path – which is how I came upon the detail in the photograph above.
Part of my this is lemonade goal is to remember and celebrate the good things. To extract out of the yucky, something that will remind me of my purpose and a reason to stay alive. In the photograph above, I didn’t just love the dandelions, I loved the harsh weathered texture of the structure behind them more. Over a decade ago, I did not know I would be writing a blog based on something yellow. In fact, I’ve never had a particular affinity with the colour, quite far from it. However, as I spend more and more time pondering on the lemonade side of things, I am finding that its vibrancy energises me.
As we know, dandelions eventually lose their intense sunshiney petals and become globes of little soft, feather-light parachutes which then carry the dandelion seeds wherever the wind may blow. What a beautifully challenging and inspiring picture to take into the weekend with me. I wonder what that image brings to your mind?
this is lemonade 