Telling the captivating tale.

The other day I spent some time sorting my digital photos on my laptop. I use an old, worn out Canon mirror reflex camera which I simply love. Only thing about it is I wish I had more lenses, but that is a minor drawback. It perpetuates the moments and the impacts I try to capture for the future.

I sorted the photos into folders, added comments and even added the photos taken with my mobile phone to the right folders. I had a good time sitting there, letting memories flood my mind. To capture the moment means that in the future you can be brought back to the past, remembering what life used to be like. (Could that be why so many these days find partners a LOT younger? Because they can’t hack reality and needs to hide in the past?)

I take different photos now than I did a few years back. I tend to capture people when they are not aware. I don’t take photos of people who pose or make funny faces. I like to think I capture more of their true self. I find my photos more beautiful now as well. I am not a great photographer, not by far, but I don’t behead every person I “shoot”.

As I was sorting the photos I came across a photo of a young, beautiful couple. They were newly married at the time, young and up to date. Looking at them brought back a lot of memories, not only of the two who posed holding arms around each other, but the situation as a whole. I was abroad at the time, very alone in a foreign country.

Since my recollection fails me at times, I was not certain if I had sent them the picture, so I looked up the man on facebook and sent him the photo in a message. He replied: “thank u for the pic , it's raise up a lot of memory .we sure look nice back then .”

It would have been great to have him in front of me then, as the reply made me wonder.

My personal opinion is that young people often are like blank canvases. Yes, youth is beautiful, not only because of the features, the boldness in showing your personality by the fashion you follow, the colours and the light mood which often beams from them. It is even more about the potential they hold in the mere notion of standing on the threshold of adult life. When you are young, yet old enough to make choices and form your own future. Nothing is too late; you got the world at your feet.

And yet, even though I think that, I can’t help but wondering why we don’t appreciate the looks of older people more. Especially here in the western world we go to quite some length to hide the trails of our lives, marked on our body and face.

When I was 18 I found 18-year old young men very attractive. Today, when I look at them, I can tell their potential, but they are not defined and show character. They don’t have the features yet, which I appreciate in a man’s look today. As for women I think it to be even more true.

It is like… the six powerful words by Ernest Hemingway.

Six powerful words
"Baby Shoes" by Ernest Hemingway

 

According to legend, Ernest Hemingway created the shortest short story ever told. While having lunch at New York City's famous Algonquin Round Table, Hemingway bragged that he could write a captivating tale -- complete with beginning, middle, and end -- in only six words.

His fellow writers refused to believe it, each betting $10 that he couldn't do it. Hemingway quickly scribbled six words down on a napkin and passed it around. As each writer read the napkin, they conceded he'd won. Those six words? "For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn."

While the anecdote may be apocryphal, whoever did write "Baby Shoes" has forced writers forever after to consider the economy of words. Today, the work has inspired countless six-word memoir and story competitions, proving that a story's brevity is no limit to its power.

(http://edition.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/01/16/mf.literature.hard.to.write/)

The older I become, the longer and more captivating the story “Baby shoes” gets. Same thing goes for people: The older they get the longer and more captivating their story is. And I find that absolutely beautiful.

A Year of Resolution

Now that the celebration of Christmas and New Year are over, I can finally exhale.

It is reasonable hefty to celebrate Christmas when I invite family, relatives and friends to compulsory dinner- and coffee gatherings. In a week you try to make up for all the social gathering we have no time to the rest of the year (even though we want to spend time together; it's not so that we avoid being together. It’s not like as if we get together in order to tell others how social we have been during the holidays), and we don’t thank no to an invitation; it is pleasant, although we could do with a day or evening of total “living on the fat of the land” on your own sofa after the hectic preparing for the holidays, to calm down.

Right now it feels good to start working again.

Christmas is the season to make a wish. We wish for all sorts of things, some want a plethora of things, while others want some better days than they usually have.
When you want something, it's usually a bit beyond one's own control, and it doesn’t always turn out great.

Now the time has come for bringing our New Year's resolutions to life. Promises we give ourselves that something is going to be different, and preferably better.

I remember one year I decided that it was time to start training. I wanted to oppose my longevity by getting in shape and tone up the decay life's wear and tear has caused my aging body. That turned out to be an incredibly costly affair. I do not think even Jennifer Aniston has ever had such expensive fitness classes.

I signed up for a membership at a gym, and stayed a member for over two years. During those two years I went twice to the gym. Each workout cost me a tidy sum of NOK 3150 , -
That, of course, I couldn’t keep up. It cost a lot more than it tasted, and it was ridiculous to stay a member just in order to say "yes, I am a member of a gym."

The lack of performance conspicuous by its absence was not good publicity for the gym, either. It was probably a win -win situation that cancelled the ongoing membership. (It was kind of sad, though, as it was the only thing going anywhere.)

My New Year's resolution used to be ambitious and sometimes high-flying, so I gave up having any. It was like everything was going to be so intense and perfectly sized. I do not know where I thought I'd find time and opportunity for them. It was so overwhelming that I delayed getting started to a day I was in better shape, which never came.

I am so lucky to be open minded, at times. I have no problem facing my own defeat and rearrange my priorities, in order to move on.
Facebook has many great groups you can join, and in one of these groups, I found the answer!  And it was so simple it was tragic.
Last Lent one of the groups started a "40 bags on 40 days" action. It was brilliant! During the 40 days of Lent  we should throw out one bag of garbage. A shopping bag is not so much, that is manageable. Even for me.
Now I moderated it a bit, I thought that since one of my greatest sorrows was that my house had depots of things I didn’t really need anymore, but that really was both nice, in good condition and useful. I decided to get rid of a bag of things or garbage every day.

So, every day I collected superfluous bits and pieces around the house in a bag. One day clothes were gathered and handed over to charity, another day it was just regular household trash. One day I went into the bathroom and thought "there must be something here that I can throw away? Something in here must be due for discarding." That day I collected three bags of trash: Empty bottles of shampoo, outdated makeup and creams which was expired (I got rid of a self-tanning cream which was out of date three years ago, and it was not even opened ).

This ongoing event was supposed to last for 40 days, but I continued doing it simply because it wasn’t time-consuming at all, and I saw the results. Now, approximately 300 days later, it has become a habit which I appreciate.
The house has never been this tidy. Depots of boxes standing around are gone, they are not likely to pile up again, and there is an infinite relief of my mind.
New Year's Resolutions...  I don’t have the self-discipline for that, but I have learned that I can keep up habits which are good for me and my surroundings. A tiny bit is infinitely more than nothing at all. Over time it becomes a lot, and eventually it becomes a big deal.