Message in a Bottle

I'm realizing that somewhere at the core of who I am is a deep-seated joy and yet a sweet sort of sadness that I experience when life is beautiful; when places and people collide in a stunning moment.

I feel it most when I travel. I get the same sort of fluttery heart when spring finally comes in the form of a sparkly sunrise or when I sit at the top of a mountain and overlook vast valleys, but I can most rely on it coming in full-force while traveling. I don't quite understand how to fully live in that sort of state of joy and sadness, but I'm trying to learn.

As we ran along the beach of the Pacific ocean and the wind whipped our hair in all directions, I couldn't help but think: this is how I'd like life to be. Simple, pure and real, with the sand beneath our feet and the sound of the waves being drowned out by the wind on the shore. Somehow it just felt right. Yet that joy carries just a hint of sadness too, knowing that life is not like this all the time and these moments have to end.

So I photograph.

I photograph to remember, relive, revive. It's like a glass bottle that I fill with the air of the ocean, longing to catch its sweet scent. I send this message to myself, hoping it washes up on shore somewhere and I find it, still intact, filled with the same memory-filled scent.

It sometimes doesn't feel like much, but I do what I can. Because this is the life that I wish to relive, that I wish to taste twice. And so, though I can't touch the salty water from where I sit, nor watch as the sand is blown across the beach, I can peer into life through still photographs.

I can remember.

Thank you Grandma and Bapa, for taking us to the Coast. 

And thank you Lord, for creating such beauty and for allowing us to taste who you are in moments like these. Yours is the sweetest of loves, Lord.