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Photo therapy
Lay in bed this morning with not a fiber of my being wanting to get up.
I am in a funk of all time funks for a myriad of reasons. But life goes on.
Laundry was skipped last weekend due to my tooth pain – blah, blah, blah – I’m so over talking about that. But, fact is, I had to do laundry today.
I milled about the house, crawled back into bed. Found myself watching ‘The Shahs of Sunset’ reunion show on Bravo. What the hell? I don’t even watch the show – no clue who the people were. But evidently, reaching for the remote and changing the channel wasn’t in the cards.
Get up Amanda.
I sat outside.
I haven’t been reading as often lately, tried to read a few pages. Haven’t picked up a paint brush in a while either, nor my camera.
“Go do laundry, and take some pictures” a voice in my head told me. From where I sat, I could see fog over the river – the mountains looked beautiful.
Okay. Get dressed and just DO IT!
So I did it. Shoved our laundry into a couple of washing machines and took myself and my camera off for some quality time.
Heads up – I’m the Queen of zoom and crop. Whereas, my son captures a subject and leaves in the surroundings, whether aesthetically pleasing or not, and his photos end up amazing. I love that about him. He doesn’t edit life. I just have a problem not editing my mouth.
Without further ado:
The reason I took my camera. Fog is rare here in the desert. It called to me. The Colorado River creates it from time to time, and every time it does, its gorgeous.
Decay and growth. I loved the juxtaposition of the two.
And here too. The area I was shooting in is prone to fires. The tree in the back obviously burned and the new growth in the foreground just made such a pleasing image.
Love the curl of this metal.
Beauty and the desert beast
The reservations irrigation system.
Looked like a mirror – or a framed picture to me
Gawd I loved these
Spent shell – wonder what was on the receiving end of this?
He’s a rocks rock
On my knees in rams head weeds to get this shot, pretty sure I have a couple of puncture wounds – but worth it
Home now – this little guy is growing through the steps. I won’t go into that metaphor. But I was proud of it and that little flower inspires me.
On the way home from the laundromat a song came on that for that very moment in time, couldn’t have been more apropos. Every word spoke to me. And I don’t know when this funk will break – but I know it will. I know this. But I’m nothing if not authentic, and I never ‘fake it til I make it’. I’m not going to plaster a smile on my face. I don’t feel like smiling just yet. I have big decisions to make, big changes to consider and time is slipping by quickly. I am sad, scared, 50 shades of blue and deep in thought. But life is still beautiful. I am still grateful. And tomorrow is another day.
Here’s that song.
Jumping spiders and Buddha too!
Thursday at work, I noticed in my peripheral vision ‘something’ on the wall in front of my desk. I glanced up from being very busy and important to see a little spider. Okay. Little is good. Wall is good. Carry on.
He was industrious because not long after that my peripheral radar alerted me of an intruder on my desk. I laid eyes on him and decided it was time he went outside.
You may be thinking now that I am ‘bug brave’. I am not. I don’t do bugs. But I can’t just kill one either. So I do bugs when I have to. Even scorpions in the Summer get caught or vacuumed up in the bagless machine and placed outside.
Yes, my blood pressure rises to an unhealthy level, yes I have nightmares, yes I’m unreasonably itchy for hours afterward in some psychosomatic state – whilst my eyes dart around the room incase it was just one of one hundred, but I really do try not to kill them
Back to spider.
So I’ve decided he’s going out. (For all intents and purposes, it’s a ‘he’ apparently).
I get a slice of paper and put it in his path. Surely he’ll waltz right onto it and I’ll simply carry him out to the leafy bush outside.
He didn’t know how to waltz. But he had leaping down!
This is the part where I’m squealing like a little girl. Audibly.
A lot louder in my head – trust me, but my vocalizations finally get the attention of the loan officer at the desk across the room.
I explain that no conventional method of capture is going to work for this guy. “Help me! It jumps!” might have been the actual verbiage I used.
He meandered over. “Where is it?”
Good question – I’d taken my eyes off of it. Peripheral Powers Activate!
I focused in and there – on my desk – was the spider taking the last few steps to hide under the shadow of my shut-up Buddha. You remember him?
So he’s at the base of Buddha’s rock. Probably meditating on how much higher he could leap at me should I go through with my attempts of relocation. (The shut-up Buddha isn’t working by the way, I bite my tongue and look at him, but unedited words still fall out of my mouth all day long).
“Get an envelope” the loan officer says. Oooo! Good idea. Yeah – we can encase him safely for the trip!
Goes off without a hitch.
I scoop up the envelope.
“Don’t squish it”, he says – as I close the flap gently, just in case. No! I didn’t Close it close it – just put it down so there was no escape route.
Outside I go with him.
There. He’s happy. He’s free. I’m happy (a little itchy and looking around the room, but happy).
Back to work we go.
Fast forward to Friday.
Alone in the office – peripheral alarm starts to bleat out a warning.
What the heck?!?!
On my wall – a jumping spider.
I’m fairly certain the other guy didn’t find his way back in – so as I was telling my friend Betty, we’re left with the only reasonable, non-alarmist, sane answer – Jumping Spider Infestation!!!
(Okay, probably there might be a little family. But I’m sticking with infestation).
I emailed the loan officer something that could have passed for a telegram SOS.
“Help! Spider! Infestation! Should close office!”
He responded sometime later that yes, sounded like immediate closure was called for.
Followed by a damn winky emoticon. Pfft. Those ‘winky’ things mean someone is kidding right? I was left with the real danger.
I made it unscathed through the day. And this morning – my Betty puts this horror on my Facebook page.
It’s over four minutes long, you won’t need to watch for that long to be itchy and darty eyed the rest of the day.
Happy Spider! Saturday!
Birds on a wire
I love my ‘cable’ birds. The hardest part is staying SO still. Next time, I’ll have to remember to grab my tripod – but I’m afraid they’ll go while I’m fiddling about with setting up. Enjoy.
Desert butterfly & a bee
Taken from my porch steps. You know, it’s really, really hard to get a bee to stay still long enough to focus. I had to ask it very nicely. 😉
Debauchery Soup 