Gifts

Gratitude hasn’t been a good word for me. It, like giving, had some bad implications. But lately I’ve been aware of some phenomenal gifts I’ve been receiving when taking a picture.

Something will catch my eye and I’ll go to take a picture. Most of my pictures are done with an iPhone. When I look on the “ground glass” I usually see something that hadn’t caught my eye but becomes part of the picture. In fact, here it was my shadow, which wasn’t even there until I stepped towards the table. “Oh, a gift!” I’d say to myself. But like most gifts, I'd have to “put it away.” So the composition has to change a little to accompany the shadow.

Then there are gifts when I view my picture in an editing program. First I see the blue cloth, then the styrofoam cup and container. Lastly, I see the little blue doorway under the table.

I suppose a good photographer might have seen all these in that moment where she saw something to photograph. But I did not.

There are gifts in all areas of my life. As much as we appreciate those whom we love, they do things time and again that we don't expect. My daughter wrote a beautiful poem the other day about her childhood. It was a gift to see what she remembered and what shaped her into the beautiful person she has become. Over and over again, gifts are falling from trees and sprouting up from the ground. Just now, I’m looking at the shutters in my window and seeing how this soft gentle light is coming into my room, and into my life so peacefully and perfectly.

Yes, I feel gratitude for these gifts.