Close Ups

In the immediate weeks after my husband died I found myself zooming in to take pictures of ordinary things. I wish I could say exactly why but it was just something I did. It gave me some unnamable comfort to focus no farther than the distance to the end of my arm.  

My favorite wine still bubbled.

Distracting myself from the task of buying new tires – something he always did - I examined the colorful candies in the vending machine.

Considering a crack in the cool floor, my children playing nearby.

My sweet cat’s sympathetic eyes.

I looked at what had not changed. The sun still came up in the morning, the wind still blew, and for now these things endured no matter who was in the world and who was not.

Close ups were my instinctive way of recognizing some level of gratitude for life. There they were, existing alongside my grief. Something, however small, was still right.

What do you still appreciate that has not changed? What comforts you? What brightens or lessens an otherwise painful moment? What patterns, colors or textures give you a moment of respite?

I invite you; take a close up.