I'm being told that to find joy you must go back in your mind and revisit times when you felt it.Times that you can re-create now in new ways.
Since I can't hold Dale's hand and walk down the streets of Paris or just sit with him at the kitchen table laughing and nibbling Oreo cookies with a cold glass of milk at midnight or stand with his arm around me as we marvel at the absolute perfection of a tiny new born grandchild....and since I must now move forward alone (even in a crowd)...I must look back at moments of joy that I experienced alone for this little exercise.
To my surprise, I actually begin to conjure up those moments. Is it really possible that my broken heart is allowing me to do that now? A year and half since he died. It's certainly not a burst of fireworks in my still fragile inner universe but an awakening of creativity as memories begin to take shape. I imagine myself in those personal introspective peaceful moments looking through the lens of my camera as I try to capture the beauty of God's creations and Oh..wait...there it is...did you feel that? A moment of joy remembered! Perhaps I actually can re-wire my brain to feel a joy that will allow me to open up the ability to be creative again!
I quickly look through my photos, oh there are are so many. So many memories. Will it be too hard to go back? But amazingly, I don't cry. I begin to experience once again the moments in time that were captured with a click of the shutter when the marvelous thing I saw with my eye was snatched from the moment and held for times such as this. Joy. I feel something akin to a healing stitch applied to my tattered heart. And even more, am I feeling a purpose? A purpose that as author Brian Tracy says I should "organize all of my activities around"?
I heard that the things that bring you the greatest joy are in alignment with your purpose. In fact Jack Canfield, author of the book: "The Success Principles" states that "Everyone is born with a life purpose and that identifying, acknowledging and honoring this purpose is perhaps the most important action that successful people take. They take the time to understand what they're here to do - and then they pursue that with passion and enthusiasm".
I of course have a purpose as a Mother and a Grandmother and daughter of God and all that comes along with those wonderful opportunities and responsibilities, but besides those I have a personal artistic purpose and I need to remember the joy I felt in the past and then take that joy and pursue my artistic expressions (all of them) with passion and enthusiasm.
It would give me joy to share some of my photographs. Photography is one of the joyous things that I enjoy doing. Look at me using the word joy over and over again. Is this progress? Have I reached another milestone on this journey I hadn't planned on taking?
I'll stop writing now and attach some of my photos. I hope that in some small way you can feel the joy I felt while taking them...and I am just beginning to realize that to share joy might be one way to find it again...I humbly thank you.
Writing Assignment #5
Talents and Hobbies
This experience has inspired me to add this topic to the writing assignment. Take some time to write about your talent's and hobbies. Don't just list them. Talk about them. Detail some of the experiences you have had while using or developing these talents/hobbies. Did you have schooling? Were you encouraged....discouraged....praised...rejected?
What has it meant to you to have these talents/hobbies. Where has it taken you or where do you want it to take you? Have you developed these talents? How, when and to what end? (pleasure, profit etc)
Take photos of your work or of you doing your work and add the photos to your history.
Have fun...and take joy in writing this!
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