iRelle

Up at Ringarooma the other day I was walking along the road with Jo pushing Henry in the pram beside me. It’s a winding country road that doesn’t see a lot of traffic except from the families who live along it and a few farm vehicles. The day was balmy and blue-skied and the grass was greener than it has been for a long time. I had my camera swinging around my neck and every five metres I had to stop to take another photo (then run to catch up to Jo).  I was in total camera-capture mode, constantly staring around to find little details that would give me a perfect shot. Those green trees against that blue hill with the mist rising off it, just wait a little longer until the sun is in just the right spot. That hill strewn with rocks, if I go like this I can get the fence in too. That tree trunk with a hole in it, the lichen growing on the asphalt, the mist rising through the trees over beyond the town – Bend like this, stretch this way, zoom in just there.

Halfway home again, I realised that I’d missed something. I had a beautiful shot of a wildflower bobbing it’s bright head to the blue sky. I had a lovely photo of the schoolhouse across the river. I even had a perfect shot for a photomanipulation I’ve been wanting to try for months. But somewhere along the way, I’d forgotten to look at what I was seeing. Maybe that flower was a shot worthy of a stock photo, but it didn’t capture the breeze that blew down the road to make the grass wave, or the watery, wintery quality to the sunshine that provided that perfect lighting. I had been walking down the prettiest path on one of the nicest days, and I hadn’t even noticed it in the here-and-now, because I had been too focussed on capturing it to remember in the future. But all that I captured was a few flat photos without real interest or texture, and worse still, without any memories or meaning to me.

The jolt when I realised that I had been oblivious to the best part of the walk was a reminder to stop and take in the things that are all around me – to surrender my senses for a few seconds, to smell the musty wood and the silage in the paddock, to let the clear, cool sunlight make my eyes water and hear the friendly scatter of a dog’s paws on the asphalt. Just to enjoy the emotions and the sensations that the day will bring, and capture that moment within yourself  just for that moment, without any demands to remember it later or tell someone else about it. Just to find that moment of peace when everything can happen and you are just absorbing everything without any expectation to give anything back.

The next moment a car sweeps around the bend and you grab the dog’s collar and give a friendly wave. Those few seconds of realisation are gone, and you will never recreate them. But we have to learn how to appreciate the here-and-now, this perfect moment in time – be it the perfect peace of a still winter morning, or the perfect pain of a sudden shock, or the perfect happiness in one bubble of laughter. Don’t try to hold it, because it will turn to something much less precious. Just savour it for a second and let it go.

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