Friday, December 16, 2016

My 2016 Photograph

Here's an interesting challenge for this frigid Friday morning. What one photograph would you pick to summarize the year 2016?

Now that virtually everyone carries smart phones around, we all take a million pictures. I'm old enough to remember being very judicious about picture taking. You would only take pictures of the really important stuff of life. Then you would take the rolls to the drug store to have them developed. Several days later and at considerable expense you would get them back only to discover that half of them were either out of focus or over exposed. It was always a crapshoot. Now, it's all a digital miracle where each picture is instant and photoshopped to make you look ten years younger. But. . . if you had to pick one, just one from your 2016 pile to immortalized your year, which would it be? For me it's easy. . .




No pictures of Trump or Clinton. No photographs of stuff. This is the one for me. It's the moment that I will remember thirty years from now if I am still living. It's the feeling, really. I'm at peace with my world. The day was sunny bright. It was mid-morning. I was fishing. Lucy was fascinated by it all. Up the hill behind me, Pam was probably sitting on the porch drinking her coffee, reading a book, when she glanced up and saw us down on the dock. The fact that she thought to take this picture tells you everything you need to know about her. She knows me, knows what makes me happy, understands the power of the quiet moment and appreciates those moments and the eternal power they possess. So, she took a second to snap this picture, to capture it all.

I didn't see it until much later, after we had returned home. It was an incredible moment. The adjustment back to our real life had not been going well when I first saw it and for one glorious minute, I was transported back to that magical moment from that magical month in Maine. I smiled. I smile every time I look at it. This is the thing I will recall about 2016 when I have grown too old to walk around outside without a shirt. . . the beautiful feeling of peace and contentment in the warm sun on that dock in July, 2016.

What about you? What's your picture? Share it with me. I'd love to see.

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