I finally remembered that I like to take pictures. Finally remembered how strapping on the camera and heading out to frame what I see, document days and memorialize moments by clicking the shutter, makes me happy.

Remembered to be happy.

It’s easy to forget how important this is. We can get trapped in the routine of go here and do this and work, work, work. Fill up the days and the hours and minutes with all of those things we have to do.

But a life with no margins to play in isn’t really living. It’s simply existing.

Not that working hard is not a good thing. It is. Taking care of a business, a family, the pots that need scrubbing, or the floor that needs sweeping is a good thing and a necessary thing. Someone does have to fold the laundry, after all.

There’s a reason we do these things, other than for the enjoyment of doing them. We do them because we are responsible adults and we do what we need to do.

But there are so many other things we need to remember to do. Things that don’t earn us a dollar, save us no time, create no obvious value after we’ve done them.

These are things we need to do, not because they are necessary, but because they bring us joy.

We need to play. We need to create. We need to sit and breathe deep and be in the moment because there is only ever the moment and eternity is found there.

We might need to whisper prayers from a pew, or from the sanctuary of an open field.

We definitely need to tell stories, hear stories, remember stories, share stories.

We need to disconnect from the daily and reconnect with delight.

But who has time for that when the counters are cluttered and the bed’s not made yet?

Maybe that’s the very reason to do it.

Is there a need to take pictures of flowers just because you enjoy taking pictures of flowers?

Of course there is.

So, go ahead and give yourself permission to take time to play, delight, enjoy this day.

The dishes really can wait.

{a gently re-edited post from the archives}

~xo,
LuAnne

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“It is a happy talent to know how to play.” (~Ralph Waldo Emerson)