One of my favorite instagrammers and bloggers, Joy Prouty, began a hashtag saying: "These pictures are poems." Along with much of what she says and does, this resonated. I've been trying to grab my real camera at least once a day to document the lives of these beautiful babies who live in my heart and home. I go to a different head space with the camera in my hand... and I love it. It feels artistic and like I find a part of myself every time I "go behind the box."
So here are a few of my favorite shots this past week, alongside some poems or lines that came to mind as I looked at them.
"Have I lived enough?
Have I loved enough?
Have I considered Right Action enough,
have I come to any conclusion?
Have I experienced happiness with sufficient gratitude?
Have I endured loneliness with grace?
I say this, or perhaps I’m just thinking it.
Actually, I probably think too much."
The Gardener - Mary Oliver
"Oh, a pirate's life is a wonderful life,
A-rovin' over the sea,
Give me a career as a buccaneer
It's the life of a pirate for me."
Disney's Peter Pan
A great description of the worldview and way of life of children:
“We laughed and laughed,
together and separately,
out loud and silently,
we were determined to ignore whatever needed to be ignored,
to build a new world from nothing if nothing in our world could be salvaged,
it was one of the best days of my life,
a day during which I lived my life and didn't think about my life at all.”
Jonathan Safran Foer
“We can't hold hands ―
Someone might see.
Won't you please
Hold toes with me?”
(Holding, Shel Silverstein)
"Mom would love to be here."
"She is."
The Secret Garden
"Sometimes since I've been in the garden
I've looked up through the trees at the sky
And I have had a strange feeling of being happy
As if something was pushing and drawing in my chest
and making me breathe fast.
Everything is made out of magic, it must be all around us."
(Frances Hodgson Burnett)
"The Child's faith is new—
Whole—like His Principle—
Wide—like the Sunrise
On fresh Eyes—
Never had a Doubt—
Laughs—at a Scruple—
Believes all sham
But Paradise."
(Emily Dickinson)
“The sandy beach reminded Harold of picnics.
And the thought of picnics made him hungry.
So he laid out a nice simple picnic lunch.
There was nothing but pie.
But there were all nine kinds of pie that Harold liked best.
When Harold finished his picnic there was quite a lot left.
He hated to see so much delicious pie go to waste.
So Harold left a very hungry moose
and a deserving porcupine to finish it up.”
(Crockett Johnson, Harold and the Purple Crayon)
"Oh darling, don't you ever grow up.
Just stay little."
(Taylor Swift)
"When the cat's away
The mice will play!"
