The Sun Also Rises

“Never be daunted”  - Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

It has been a very strange year, full of odd ups and downs. I've had some amazingly positive things happen, along with some major disappointments.

I haven't gotten into details about the upsetting stuff here, as I try to keep these pages as an upbeat, happy place. Let's suffice it to say that there've been things both big and little, some of them really disappointing. Some of them are too private to discuss; nobody's business but my own.

In the past month, I have not been myself. My normal, happy, loving self has been taken over by other, more awful emotions. Disappointment. Unhappiness. A burning white-hot rage of holy indignation. Fear for the future.

This is new ground for me. I do not recognize my face in the mirror. It is like I have swallowed acid and can't decide whether to spit or swallow; it burns, it burns, either way.

I have never been one to get enmired in politics - in fact, I find the topic mortifying - but I honestly do not recognize what my country has become. I cannot believe the things that are happening here.

Some of the dreams I had, some of the beliefs I held true, have been shattered. I am struggling to find my way. What shall be the path of love and mercy in a broken, hateful world, where things promise only to get worse?

In the lesser scheme of things - to the world, at least - one of the things I lost this fall was my camera. My camera takes me to my happy place. Did you ever wonder why I go out with it every morning?

Did you ever think I might be looking for something to get me through my day? Did you ever think I might be . . . broken? A Seeker, looking for reasons to believe?

But alas, my camera, my beloved Canon PowerShot SX50 HS, died on me in mid-October. Fortunately, it did so right after it helped get me through the only professional photo shoot I've done in my entire life. That's the good thing, at least.

I've been using my SX40 as a back-up, but the whole experience has not been as joyful. The camera works but the pictures aren't as good. Neither is the zoom. The lens makes an awful death-rattle/squeal when it extends. I have been willing it to hang on until help comes.

There are things in the world you can control and things you cannot. Wisdom - and peace - can be found in deciding which things belong in which category. On each day, can we tackle even just One Thing That Can Be Done, and do it, and move on . . .

So on this day, I finally took a step to address at least one broken thing in my own little world: I ordered a new camera, the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS. I had been watching the price - it started out around $550 when it was first released and dropped to $479.

I kept an eye on the price around Thanksgiving but it never really dropped much more. On this day, we did some more searches online and my husband found it for $459 with no shipping or tax from 42nd Street Photo in New York City.

I checked the customer reviews and they were glowing. I went ahead and placed the order. The camera should be here within a few days. Maybe even by my birthday, which is at the end of this week.

"When the new camera comes, won't you be happy again?" my husband pleaded with me.

(And I am ashamed, dear people, to tell you that this man who loves me beyond measure is the only person I have been overtly mean to during this time. He has put up with a lot, that man. I have said to him all the horrible, broken things I cannot/will not say to others, and he has loved me right back anyway.)

"I will at least try to ACT happy," I promised him.

"Maybe if you ACT happy, you will convince yourself you ARE happy again," he said hopefully.

"Wouldn't it be pretty to think so," I said. And I tried smiling, though I found I didn't mean it at all. At least, not at first.

Yes, I will try to do better. When the new camera comes, I will pick it up and pretend - until I make it so - that I am the old happy me. I will go out into the world with whatever joy I can muster, into the places where beauty lives. I will capture and bring back the glories of every sunrise; I will remind myself, again, not to take any of these gifts for granted.

I will try to be the change I want to see in this new broken, worrisome world. Can the world be healed - can I be healed - one picture at a time? We shall see. At least I'll get to have some fun trying. . . . (And I do realize that there are bigger issues that pictures alone cannot solve; rest assured that I will do my best by those, as well.)

This picture, by the way, is sunrise as viewed through the window of our bedroom, covered in condensation from our breath overnight. I love the thought of us lying there, wrapped around each other as we sleep, breathing out, breathing in . . . And then the morning's golden sun comes in and turns it into art.

This seems as good a soundtrack song as any, so here is Gordon Lightfoot with Wherefore and Why.