Waiting? Seize the day!

Most recently I have been contemplating waiting. This morning as I awoke, I looked to the window and to what did my wondering eyes should appear, (no not reindeer) but the sun rising and one of the most dense fogs I have seen in quite some time. And fog to a photographer can be a dream. The softness it brings, depth and an ethereal quality to an image. I grab my camera, scribble a note to my girls, and jump in the car and off I go, in an effort to capture a favorite tree as the sun beams down through the dewy boughs. I head for a tree that I have been lucky enough to capture a year or so ago that spoke to me, you can view some of them on a cafepress site that I put together in order to share them http://www.cafepress.com/brendalevos/5569842 the calendar showing the best selection of images http://www.cafepress.com/brendalevos.266326990 of the morning.

Actually when shooting that very morning, I had been very focused on the river, and the fog and capturing its beauty. As I had felt that I had captured some images that I was happy with and as the sun was beginning to usher the fog from existence, I turn to head toward home and the image I saw would continue to be one of my all time favorites, that of the sun beaming through the boughs in the fog. And while I do love the images I was fortunate enough to capture, being there, in that moment as I was doing what I thought was my goal for the morning, I turned and was faced with something much more beautiful that I could have imagined. So I seized the opportunity and clicked off a number of shots which I will forever treasure.

As I arrive and position myself in a similar location, I notice that it is a bit earlier in the season, and the trees are perhaps providing too much foliage for the sun to stream through as it had in the years earlier. So I wait. Perhaps it will still be as wonderful. And I wait. As the sun rises, it just isn't the same, and the same feel isn't there, and maybe it never will be. It reminds me of a poem:

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite. 
Or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting perhaps for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil
or a better break
or a string of pearls
or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls
or another chance. 
Everyone is just waiting

Are you waiting? What are you waiting for?

I have recently decided to make an effort to live from a position of abundance rather than from scarcity. As I open my pantry, I ask myself, what is this representing in my life? I had shelves and shelves of food. One devoted solely to "special" food. Things that I picked up at Tastefully Simple parties in the past. Things that I was saving for a "special" moment, event, party, time. And in all honesty, my "saving" them, was only in reality allowing them to perish, expire, and become worthless. 

Purging my cupboards of some of the extraneous things I had been needlessly hanging on to. Deep in the recesses, I discovered a box, one that I hadn't seen in quite some time. I had been saving it. It was a packaged dinner not in need of refrigeration, sweet and sour chicken....chicken included! And then it had dawned on me, I last recollect seeing that box, as I relocated it into its current destination as we moved from the lake to our current abode. Let's just place that somewhere in the very early 1990's. I couldn't even bear to open the box, its next relocation was as it dismounted my hands in horror, and stuck a landing deep amongst its companions of the last decade or so that it had resided in my kitchen, straight into the garbage.

Something saved.....something wasted. While I do believe in saving things, I have most recently come to cherish being present in the moment. What could be more "special" than my family and this very moment? Why are they not "special" enough for the "Chocolate Ugly Cake Mix" or the "Savory Wheat Beer Bread?" Why isn't Monday night "special" enough? Why isn't your artistic talent "special" enough be make a career of it? Why isn't today the day you open your eyes to how quickly life passes, how quickly a decade can slip though fingers waiting for a "special" day? Why isn't today the day you tell someone you love them, staff you appreciate them, the postman you are grateful for the service he provides?

Seize the day! Start a project, do something for someone, do something for yourself. Live!

Don't be the chicken rotting in the cupboard!

P.S. The poem, its author, Dr. Seuss. ....tanslates.... even something small and somewhat childish, can be profound. What is the poem you are living this day saying about you? What are you waiting for?