There’s one day a year I feel pretty confident I’ll have an opportunity to practice snapping some spiffy photos in less-than-easy conditions…and that’s Independence Day. Crazy low light, long vs short exposure, and wide vs short lenses. Oy! As is par for the patriotic course, I’m unimpressed with the results for this year. It goes to remind me some things are better experienced without a lens in between.
It’s Memorial Day weekend and the kids in my neighborhood are playing in the streets…literally. In particular, the kids next door are a spectacle to behold. They are four of the scrappiest kids you’ve ever seen; frolicking twigs that break as easily as they bend. They push their luck in feat after feat, which I watch in my peripheral vision as I mow the lawn or tend to the flower beds until the inevitable conclusion of an injury-wail fills the air as quickly as the smell of lighted charcoal briquettes. When one of the kids is injured, they all cease their playing, some watching the proceedings of the injury-analysis, some keeping their distance.
How have they learned about the reverence in a mere moment of silence?
It has rained generously the past several days, but it was warm and sunny this afternoon. So after I finished working at school, I went to the park. Like a few days earlier, puddles were there to greet me under the swings.
Now, I’ve done lots of swinging in my day, but I’ve never seen puddles the likes of these. It wasn’t the size nor shape that made them remarkable, rather it was their personality. As I was swinging high in the air, I would look down and see the puddle moving and stirring from the air rushing by. The water wasn’t clear or muddy… it was IRIDESCENT. Amazing and beautiful. (Like those turtle-shaped stickers you got as a kid that had iridescent filling that oozed and changed.) The patterns were endless, wouldn’t hold still for even a moment. The nearby puddles did not share the magic…just those under the swings. I could not explain it, but the mystery made it all the more mesmerizing.