I’d decided what I was going to write while I was walking the dog the other night but then I changed my mind because it felt like it was all about goldfish and entropy and that people wouldn’t want to read it.
I had that crashing moment of doubt with a side order of self-pity where I wondered if anyone wanted to read what I write anyway.
Which I know is untrue because I know that – when I actually write – people visit my site just as much for the writing as they do the images
I write when I’m sad. It’s a catharsis that is best not shared and so I don’t. Because I AM sad a fair bit of the time. This is not to be confused with being unhappy. That’s an endlessly different beast. I’m talking of the weariness of the soul that bubbles right back to the hitherto mentioned goldfish and whatnot.
And it’s this sense of entropy contrasted with the most fleeting and magically light touch that joys brings – like a swash of gold on a matte matte navy surface. The way the ecstasy of the body and the mind is both ephemeral and explosive and shockingly – suddenly – gone. The heartbreaking lurch as we leave these glorious little bubbles and go back to the 9-5 and the bills we’re not entirely sure how we’re going to pay. The traffic jams and staring out of steamed windows onto a grey grey world.
It’s why I love weddings the way I do.
And I quietly – if not exactly celebrate – walk hand-in-hand with my quiet sadness. Because it’s that very thing that makes passion and friendship like fireflies on a dark night. We know that nothing can ever ever last forever and that goes for the bad just as well as the good (as Tolkien said, in the end a shadow is just a passing thing (I paraphrase somewhat)).
It’s also due to this faintly maudlin curiosity that I shoot the way I do.
I like the textures and the motes of dust dancing in accidental light. I like the running mascara, and the belly-laughs and the hands held quietly under a table.
Because it’s a beautiful reminder of all that we ever have is the here and now and it’s all absolutely incredible.