This series of pictures is like an illustration of my life.

There I was at Squam Art Workshops, surrounded by nature and beauty and inspiration and genius, and I try to do a selfie with some of my cabin mates (love) on the way to breakfast.  Instead of making the timer wait longer before it shoots, I made it take 10 consecutive pictures.  Not only that, but I forgot that I left it in manual focus, hence the fact that not one thing is clear.  (Not even the spider web photo that I put it on MF for in the first place.)  Then I scurried back to the group in an awkward manner and knelt right on Sweet One's fingers, perhaps maiming her for life.  Thank goodness she is a good sport.

It was silly.  Like life.

I have been really annoyed at the fact that I WANT to post here and I just clicked to see when my last post was and that birthday party feels like fovever ago.  I had my oldest friends visit and never really wrote about it!  My mom has been here for a month!  My sister and her kiddos came and I met my niece for the first time! My brother came to vistit and nary a post has been posted.  Sigh.

Back to the point of this random post: Thank the heavens that we can still find beauty and joy in the awkward and silly, because that gives me hope.  And when I went away and took a few days for myself, I was able to breathe and be still inside.  And it was like in that wonderful children's book ...ish, I didn't try to capture it, I just soaked it all in.  I watched all the other artists and writers and poets and creative souls capturing bits and pieces and that was good enough for me.

Here is the only other picture I got that is worth keeping and sharing:



And the reason that it is worth it, even though every other squam post has a picture just like that one, is because the lake helped me be still.  It helped in my reflections.  It aided my capacity to breathe deeply.  Watching the sun rise in the mornings and seeing the night sky reflected on its surface grounded me.