All for a picture

It's quite amazing what we go through for pictures.

Has anyone else noticed how a whole experience can become about the photos? Maybe this is more for my generation, but on multiple occasions I've been out and seems like the sole purpose of being out is getting photos so you look like you're having fun. Now, I'm not saying this applies to everyone. But especially today, with the prominence of facebook, I feel like our world has gotten more and more fixed on appearances.

And, of course (cause it would be this way), on the nights that you have the most fun - the nights you want to remember most - often no pictures are taken at all. Or else, those pictures don't capture the experience.

Anyway, appearance rant over.

This is just one amusing remembrance of the lengths for a photo.
When Jane, Emily, and I were in Paris we wanted to get a picture of the Eiffel tower sparkling.

Something like this was the goal:

We had already seen the Eiffel tower already, but that was during the day, and we needed the night shot.

So, on our last night, we ended up on the opposite side of Paris as the Eiffel Tower, but we still needed to see the Eiffel Tower sparkling. I had lost my metro pass the night before. Taking into account time (sort of) and circumstance (more so), we decided to walk to the eiffel tower. This was probably a 2-4 mile walk...

It took us about an hour to make the walk - with a few stops in between.

As we neared the Eiffel tower, the lights started to go off, but we were not close enough for a good picture. We broke into a very quick speed walk and finally got to this sandy park (cause very few parks in paris have grass - that's another story) near the Eiffel tower.

We all stopped and pulled out our cameras, but as we began to take pictures, an African man jumped out of the bushes with a ring of Eiffel Tower key chains (a common tourist "trap").

(Thinking on it now, I don't think the man was going to threaten our lives over Eiffel tower key chains - just a guess. But, being three young girls in a foreign city, it is quite alarming for a man to jump out of the bushes and quickly approach you. So, of course, we shoved our cameras in our pockets and made a light jog toward a more crowded area... A bit rude now that i think about that...)

We made it to a bridge right across from the tower and started to take pictures, but we were now a bit too close. So we started to walk speedily towards the other end of the bridge (where we had gotten a good shot the day before) and then, just as we reach the other end of the bridge, we turn around. And the lights stopped.

That's life, isn't it.

We stood there, all looking slightly dejected. We silently looked toward each other. Nothing was said. And we all began to walk back to the nearest metro station.

Now, hindsight being 20/20 - as it is -- if we had really wanted to enjoy the eiffel tower, we would have planned to go to a further point and just sit and watch the eiffel tower - maybe with a cappucino. But we were so focused on sharing our experience, capturing it, flaunting it (whatever it was), that we didn't just enjoy the moment for ourselves. We didn't just sit and watch and enjoy the lights - though we could have on multiple occasions. Instead, we were always striving for a better view for a better picture. We valued what other people would see or what we would remember over the moment.

Now, not all of life can be carpe diem and not all carpe diem is good. But I think, too, much of life can be wasted thinking of what others see rather than appreciating what's right in front of you.

Our final product:

Not terrible. (Didn't capture what we briefly saw either :))


Love to all!

Adventure

I'm a bit of an adventure junkie. Well, perhaps I could just say I'm a bit of a romantic. I love the idea of adventure and pursuing anything that seems like it. But I'm realizing (to my luck) life is an adventure all by itself.

I once saw a card which on the front was labelled, "life." It had a start dot from which a line went out and then that line went all around in circles finally creating something that looked like a loose ball of yarn. On the other end there was a dot that said, "Finish." I was in my late teens at the time and my mom said something like, "That's about right."

I didn't quite believe my mom at the time. I laughed but thought in my head, "No. My life is going to make sense, it's going to be clear. I'm going to pray through every moment and my life is going to make one clear, straight path."

Oh, the laugh is on me now.

I had a discussion with a friend last night and we both wondered, "Were our parents something like this when they had us?" Basically, did they have NO idea what's going on like we do. We agreed that it was most likely the case.

As a child your parents are the founts of all knowledge; their word is absolute truth. But as you get older you realize, yes, they had much more experience and more things figured out than you did at the time. But, most likely, your parents were still figuring things out, just like we are now.

"Figuring out" life can be taxing and stressful and worrisome and depressing. But I find this generally comes from a feeling of responsibility of needing to be or do something in particular to please something or someone's expectations.  On the other hand, life can be seen as one big adventure - a crazy, unpredictable, blessing of an adventure. And I think in this we might, just maybe - for a second- find peace.