Back in 2012, when I started my current job, I had a 30-minute commute to work. I would leave the house around 7:15 or so, catching the first rays of the sun.
Stillmore Road, which took me from Stillmore, Georgia, to Highway 46 in Metter, is largely unremarkable. It’s a lot of houses, trailers, woods, a few ponds here and there. But to catch it in the morning light? It was otherworldly.
The above photo is a picture I took with my phone during one of my morning commutes.
I don’t know when I got out of the habit of taking photos, but I miss it, and I’m determined to be intentional about it again…not because I want to be a renowned photographer, but because the act of stopping and admiring and creating was therapeutic. It made me tap into that intuitive part of myself — something I find myself doing less and less.
I have some friends at work that take one second of video every day of the year, and then they combine it all into one video that gives them a video record of where they were, what they were doing and who they were with. I love that, but I don’t know that I’m persistent enough to pull it off — that and it’s already the third day of the year, so I’m behind the 8-ball. I don’t know…I could give that a whirl.
I know I want to take photos again. I want to have something that makes me look at the world around me, and in order to look at the world around me, I have to go out into the world around me. That means leaving the house. That means interacting with others. That means getting out of my funk.
Creativity makes me happy. I love looking at all the old photos I have on Instagram. I remember the moments where I pulled over on the side of the road, risking absurd looks from my neighbors and passersby — once even having someone from Crider (a chicken canning plant) ask me what I was doing because I was taking pictures near the facility.
The point is I want to be creative — actively creative. Taking photos, enjoying the beauty of nature or architecture or people or art, gives me joy. And the joy that comes from that fuels me to be more and to do more.
This year, I want to create. I want to be inspired. I want to observe. I want to record.
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