went on a walk and thought some thoughts--oh the beauty of walk!

today i woke up around 8, trundled down my porch stairs in my jammies, and shuffled around to judy's to open her blinds, feed the beta fish and water the snake.  the snake's name is mr. pleasant and he's a rat snake.  luckily i didn't have to feed mr. pleasant.  mr. pleasant usually kept to his rock cave when i was around but today he stayed out and stared at me from his corner.  he's actually kind of cute, i thought.  'excuse me but do you perhaps have a frozen mouse for me?' he seemed to be saying as he blinked his beedy eyes at me.  

i came back upstairs, kicked off my flipflops and jumped into bed.  i watched the last two episodes of little dorrit on netflixs.  so good!  when it was done i was so full of feeling that i played bubble shoot on my phone for so long that when i finally put it down, i couldn't focus on anything for a while. 

do something meaningful with your day laura, i suggested, so i got up and made two grilled cheese sandwiches on rustic garlic loaf with jalepeno havarti, sat down to eat them and study my scriptures at the dinning room table.  it was a good study time full of insights and beautiful things.  

when i was done i looked around the house and asked myself what i most wanted to do.  i want to go on a walk and i want to take my camera!, i answered.  but it's so lonely to go on camera walks by yourself, i warned.  in response i sang this line from a mason jennings song "i am lonely, but i won't be lonely always".  and so i brushed my teeth, braided my hair in a particularly messy ponytail-fishtail braid, put on a pair of capris and my five finger shoes and went out the door.

well just before i left katie called so we talked as i walked.  as soon as i felt the warmth of this mild april day and the breathed in the freshness of the air i felt a feeling of well being and happiness.  

katie and i had a nice chat.  she knew about little dorrit and never told me.  hmph.  i took the path i told you about before but this time went the other way.  before i knew it i was out of the woods and crossing a little bridge and drawn towards a talll fluffy magnolia tree.  my wide angle lens isn't working and that makes me sad and frustrated when i want to get a whole scene kind of pic. i had to let it  go and embrace what i could do. 

i suddenly realized that i was in a neighbourhood where one of my housing guys used to live.  weiwd, i thought, i didn't even recognize that's where i was but of course it only made sense.  i remember driving him home and thinking that i would like to explore that path into the woods.  i headed back to the bridge and passed a man. we smiled at each other.  (a long time ago when i was 18 or 19 i decided to smile at people i passed.  it was a good decision, i think)  he said something about how it  was such a wonderful day and i agreed and added "and warm for once!" "yes!" he agreed jubilently.  and then we were past each other.  he had a south african accent.  those south africans are everywhere.  i realized that i had hit it right one the nose.  it was the warmth that felt so good about today.

and then i started talking pictures of everything and losing myself in it and it wasn't lonely at all.  it was happy.

i started thinking about how there is so much beauty and marvel everywhere.  like there was this patch of  dusty- purplish weed in the grass.  i thought it looked kind of pretty against the green.  i felt an impulse to take a pic of it, but then thought, no, that's not picture worthy, but i looked closer and saw these tiny pink blossoms shooting out the undersides.  they were delicate and petty and when i got up off the ground after taking the shot, i thought about it.  i thought a lot of thoughts.  one thing i think about is about using my gifts to glorify God.  i've thought about it a lot.  i'm not sure how exactly to do that with photography but something whispered to me, maybe this is how--looking for the beauty around you and sharing it with others.  not just in nature but in people too.  and i thought about changing how i think about what i do.  if i am using my gift to glorify God and if i give it back to God as a gift it changes everything.  when i do things for people i can get so caught up in what they may think or if i am meeting their expectations and if i am good enough.  and i get all needy about affirmations.  but i don't have to be perfect for God.  it doesn't matter how meager my gift he takes it and makes it better.  he values a widow's mite of a gift.  and if i always thought like that, worked like that, if everyone did, we wouldn't be so paralyzed by our insecurities and fears, and we would make the world a better place.  

and i thought about that puplish weed and its beautiful secret and i thought maybe we all have beautiful secrets in us.  maybe we think we're weeds and kind of ugly but God knows about the seeds of greatness and beauty in us and his work is to help us bloom and our work is to help each other bloom and in doing so we bloom ourselves.  maybe our beauty is only a secret to ourselves but obvious to everyone who loves us.

these were some of my thoughts today as i walked and thought thoughts.