Slowing It Down

Like most towns, ours has a K-Mart Super Center.  It is in a complex with a McDonalds, Biscuitville, Bojangles and other such businesses.  Sometimes, when Howard and I are going shopping, we drive by and get breakfast and park in the K-Mart parking area.  It is a large area with many trees around it.  At the time of morning that we are usually there, we have the place to ourselves.  That is, except for the birds.

One of the reasons we love to go there is because of the many types of birds that hang out there.  It is obvious that a lot of people go there to eat because as soon as your park, they start hopping around the car anxious for any piece of food you might offer them.  When we do offer them a morsel, they immediately pounce on it.  There is a definite pecking order, but usually this is carried out with no squabbling or violence. Unlike the human population that inhabits this earth with them, they seem to accept each other and wait their turn. We have seen cardinals, catbirds, gulls, sparrows, blackbirds, crows and many more birds while eating our breakfast. 

Most of us have spent the majority of our lives in a hurry.  There is an AT&T ad that asks, “which is better….slower or faster?”  I doubt there is anyone who would answer slower (except that silly little girl in the commercial!).  I have found that I have missed so many wonderful things by being in the fast lane with everyone else.  As I am having to take my time eating (so as not to choke), walking (so as not to fall), talking (so others can understand my words) and so forth, I am noticing so many things that were just blurs in my former life.  I am totally amazed at all I have been “too busy” to notice.

When you wake up in the morning do you jump out of bed, go to the bathroom and start getting dressed?  Do you ever lie in bed for a moment and watch the sun begin to light the eastern sky with its beauty? 

When you are driving/riding down the road do you notice the trees along the way?  Do you see the way they change each month into something different, whether summer or winter?

Have you ever watched as the birds fly around your home?  Some of them sing beautiful songs and others just flutter around and see what they can get into.  Some fly solo, in pairs or in great flocks.  No matter what their habits are, each is a wonder all its own.

Have you noticed the people you pass each day?  We all see people in the stores, on the streets and riding in other cars.  Do you pay attention to them or just go on your way?  Do you see the sadness, happiness, sorrow, joy, pain or other emotions that run across their faces?  Are they in as much of a hurry as you are and ignore you also?

As I have slowed my pace in life, I wish I knew more about photography.  There are so many great scenes I would love to catch on film.  I wish I could take them out of my mind’s eye and put them on paper.

In my lifetime I have been in all but four of our fifty states.  I have seen so many beautiful places and things.  I have few pictures of those travels.  Most of my journeys related to work and I was not prepared to film them.  Many times I would just stop and stare at some wonder that I suddenly came upon and was not expecting.  It is one of the sad things in my life that I have nothing to share with others of these things.

I don’t expect to suddenly start taking pictures of everything I see.  I do hope that I take the time to enjoy the things I do see.  Maybe one day someone will invent a way to download all the great moments we have stored in our brains.  I hope they do it soon………..my brain is getting so short-circuited that they would have to defragment it several times to make any sense of what they find!