Countdown 47 Days: A Cold Wind is Blowing

 "I met a girl who sang the blues

And I asked her for some happy news

But she just smiled and turned away..." 

American Pie by Don McLean, 1971    

When I was young I was fascinated with photography; by a camera's ability to capture a slice of time, so fleeting and ephemeral, and yet there to be recalled on some future date, even when the players and the place have been altered or have disappeared. 

Granted, the photos I was able to take with our old Kodak Duaflex left much to be desired; small in format, the black and white images grainy  and sometimes disappointing after the long wait for the film to be developed.  But the possibilities that photography offered!  

I think I often looked at the world as if I was looking through a camera lens, composing a scene to capture a view of the world, or going in for a close-up.  People talk about a photographic memory, and I was nurturing mine.  This is not to say, that I have perfect recall, far from it, but my memories of people and places were often composed and frameable.  Sometimes that process let me choose to leave the mess and the unpleasant outside the frame, but I might just as easily zoom-in and capture the smallest details.  

The second major "grown-up" purchase that I made after graduating from college and getting a job was a Canon SLR camera.  (The first was a white 1973 Mustang to replace my 1951 black Chevy) I took that camera on a bus tour of Europe.  I shot my first roll of film in England.  Curious as to why I was able to keep shooting pictures after the supposed last picture on the film, I discovered that I had failed to load the film properly! Humbled, certainly, but glad I still had a chance to take pictures of Shakespeare's home in Stratford-on-Avon and the rest of my trip.

Indeed, the possibilities of photography have grown and expanded since my first adventures with lens, aperture and focus, often in mind-blowing ways, that we, creatures of this modern age, too soon take for granted.  

Today, I click on a link that took me to the Associated Press's 100 Photos of 2024 and I felt the full impact of photographic possibilities.  I was thrust into the lives of thousands; into their struggles and pain in such a visceral way.  Mothers mourning their dead sons, families cooking a meal in the roofless shells of their bombed out homes, I caught a glimpse through a window of the the storm-wrecked landscape after a tornado and saw the caved-in roof of a home after the hurricane.  How good to see happy Ukrainian children's faces on the first day of school and other occasional images of beauty, but those 100 pictures told stories that needed to be told and are often heartbreakingly tragic. 

How do we deal with all this?  On this cold winter day, with the temperatures dropping to the single digits here in Minnesota with wind chills below zero, I am still safe and warm; but I am reminded that so many do not have comfort or safety in their lives.  We will not often find the "happy news", but will we just "smile and turn away?"

Today, I sat for awhile, like Pope Francis did (in one of the 100 images), and let the tears flow.  Sending love to a broken but still beautiful world.

STEP 16:

It's okay to cry.  Your feelings are valid.  Be grateful for your willingness to feel sorrow and empathy.