Saturday evening, I found myself lured down to Picnic Island to watch the sun go down in the company of a young lady.
We got there about an hour and a half before sunset and the main purpose was just a visit, rather than a shoot. But Neville being Neville, well, I had my camera hanging over my shoulder,” just in case”.
I only had my general purpose lens on the camera, so I obviously wasn’t expecting anything worth shooting. If it had been a real plan, I would have brought either the ultra-wide or one of the zooms.
So, truthfully my mood was more involved in just enjoying the evening.
The sun was still relatively high as we started out and we walked the length of the beach, lost in idle chatter. Occasionally I noticed something worth shooting, so I (rudely) interrupted the conversations and did whatever was necessary to get the “right” shot.
I have attached a broad selection of the final shots to the end of the blog and I hope you find something there worth checking out.
It was only during the final sequence of shots that my mind really wandered onto the whole notion about how everything had changed from when we first arrived there. The blue skies moved to yellow and gold and accompanied by a wonderful mixture of clouds near the horizon, morphed into shades of orange and red, punctuated with clouds of mauve and violets.
The wonderful breeze coming in from the bay stayed constant throughout, but it heralded in change in the water as it became less tranquil and the waves more pronounced.
The mood of my companion and I also changed. What started as friendly became confrontational and argumentative and ultimately broke down as she stormed off in heavy disagreement.
So, as I drove home my thoughts were largely about the change in the evening (and companions), and how life is also primarily a medium of change.
Life takes us through many physical changes, emotional changes, outlook changes, belief changes, and finally hope changes.
We are never the same person as we were a year ago. Life has changed around us and life has changed us.
We may anchor ourselves into something solid and constant such as a long term career or a relationship or marriage even. But even within those seemingly steady situations, we and our situations change.
Some people dread change and for them life is very much a challenge. No matter how they seek a constant or uneventful life, things happen that upsets their plans.
The better choice is to embrace change. Accept that it is going to happen and roll with it.
Fifteen years ago I helped start a company that looked solid and secure and seemed like it would outlive me and perhaps even exist in some form “Forever”.
But the reality is there is no forever. And today I had the unenviable task of giving two weeks notice to everyone that we have to shut down.
Some changes like this one can bring a sense of failure and COVID’s effect on the industry we are in gives me an immediate alternative to my failure, should I look for one.
And while there is a real sense of sadness and defeat in such a change, there is also a realization that since no journey runs forever, we hit these forks in the road where a change of direction might bring us to an even better destination.
I mean, how many times have you been the reluctant “victim” of a change to circumstance only to find out later, how much better off you are because of the change.
Such is life. When it presents us with these forks in the road, it places no guarantee whichever direction you head. You don’t know if it will be better or worse, but chances are it won’t be the same.
The only part of our destination that is guaranteed is death. Living comes with none, so to expect a “forever” in anything is quite naive.
But in reality, who wants “forever” in anything? Anything we do “forever” will become boring and stagnant, I don’t care how much you love it.
You love chocolate? Try eating it morning, noon, and night for a week, even, and you will grasp the understanding of what the forever notion does to anything.
No. Change is what drives our lives forward and gives us a set of experiences along the way. They won’t all be good but their differences and the experience we gain from them will embroider the tapestry of our lives with the most amazing shades of gold, orange, reds, mauve, and violets.
They will create the work of art that eventually hangs on the wall in our hall of memories. And who wants a painting that is simply blue?
… just a thought!
