Saturday, January 7, 2017

Snow Day In A Miraculous World

The Now Project
January 1st-7th

Last month, I hopped on board with a fellow Instagrammer's brain child, called The Now Project, which was officially launched with the new year. The concept is to try and capture moments during our week, post photos, and write about them. I'm not sure I'll be able to keep this up all year, especially the writing part, since I tend towards laziness, but I'm going to try. The hardest part will probably be picking just one "moment" per week.

However, if I have to choose one moment from the first week of January, I choose our crazy, out of nowhere snow day. Living in southeast Virginia, a few blocks from the Chesapeake Bay, we don't see a lot of snow. We get humidity aplenty. Mosquitos, hurricanes, 70 degree rainy autumn days, patriotic parades, cannons left over from our Revolutionary and Civil War years, but not a lot of snow. So for us to get 10" dumped on us in a single day in the midst of blizzard conditions is pretty noteworthy.

Full disclosure: I loathe snow. I hate being cold. I hate the wet, and the mud, and the layers, I hate all of it. But my kids are all still young enough to glory in the beauty (and let's be honest, the novelty) of a winter wonderland, so I suck it up at least once a year and let them spend a half hour preparing to go out in the snow for a total of fifteen minutes.

This past week, on January 5th, was also Chloe's 11th birthday. I usually do a birthday photo session with my kids, and this time I decided we should take advantage of this rare, snowy occurrence for Chloe's big day. Which means- yes!- I too went out in the snow. Wonder of wonders! I won't post all of her photos here because I want to share them in a separate blog for her, but I will throw a couple in.

All of that said, here's the thing. I'm taking a chance with this. I don't know anyone else in this group I've chosen to be a part of, which in itself is a big step. But it's one I'm eager, albeit nervous and scared and kind of freaking out and fighting social anxiety and-- well, I could go on and on about that-- it's one I'm eager to take.  I'm choosing an opportunity to push myself out of my lazy ruts that I create for myself when I could be creating something beautiful instead. I'll work at becoming that version of myself that I want to see. I'll drop the ball sometimes this year, absolutely I will. But my main goal for 2017 is this mantra: "No more self sabotaging." That includes settling for subpar writing and blogging, photographing, and passing up chances to record this little tiny space of time my kids and my family are occupying right now. We live in a miraculous world, friends; one where anyone can instantly share what sandwich they ordered for lunch. Don't my kids, their memories, and their lives deserve more recognition and respect than a sandwich, even if it did come from Which Wich?

As far as it depends on me, my kids will be a part of this miraculous 2017. And I will be the record keeper of our small, wondrous, everyday miracles.

Happy New Year, Happy Snow Day, and Happy Miracle Choosing.

-M
















All photos © 2017 Mary Smoot
Shot with Nikon D800

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