How to flow from here to there

Can you tell the winter is getting to us? Here in the Northeast winter has been brutal. Day after day of snow, sleet, ice and freezing rain. Consistent cold temperatures after I’d  deep sixed most of my winter wardrobe during the past few years of warmer temperatures. And grey days that make you wonder if the sun will ever shine again. But then it does and despite the cold, I look up into an electric blue sky and find a smile. I see sunlight glistening off of ice and snow as brilliant as perfectly cut gem stones. And maybe I notice a slight thaw where snow begins to melt into water washing away some of the cold that’s penetrated not just my garden but somewhere deep within my soul flowing slowly from frozen ice melting into spring, from a heaviness of heart to promise of possibility.

With the extreme temperatures this year I’d forgotten about that. Yes, I know, Spring will come. I’m as eager as Jenny to greet her. My daffodils will push up through the thawing earth to open their sunny, yellow heads in the hopes of what’s to come. And maybe then I will look fondly back on Winter with her quiet beauty, still moments and endless time for reflecting back on the year before.

And somewhere in between, I will have pulled out my film cameras to capture the seasons. From Winter into Spring. From coldness into the honeyed warmth of the sun. And like the photos above, taken at the tail end of a roll left over from fall, I will find images of beauty from these dark months at the beginning of a roll from Spring that I’ll probably develop when it’s almost time for Summer. Flowing through the seasons, flowing through emotions, and flowing from one roll of film to the filled with touching reminders that flowing from here to there, or from there to here, wasn’t as tough as it seemed. How about you? Do you draw out your rolls of film finding gems flowing from one season to the next? If you’re living in part of the deep freeze this year, what practices have you found that have helped your photography flow this year?

Until next time,
Holly ~ Soupatraveler