Delays

The week that the shit of COVID-19 hit the fan, I had dinner plans with sweet friends.

A dinner to reconnect and share my new home after a long winter of hibernation. I’d been living in my house for months and it had been a little while since we’d seen each other, but I’d spent the winter putting off everything; I tend to do that in the winter months, like most Canadians with mild seasonal affective disorder 😉  

Her husband is a doctor in the hospital, I had been sent home from work and everyone was a bit scared of the unknown. We decidedly, rightly, to cancel that dinner date. This morning that friend and I were chatting over text about how we wished to see one another, to share dinner in my new home; to share each other’s company.

It’s not the first time through this that I’ve regretted my decision to delay something.

I’m an expert procrastinator, with so many reasons and rationalizations to postpone a desire of my heart. Not photographing the cactuses in Florida when I was there last year; not writing the words on paper when the inspiration gripped me; not throwing the housewarming party to celebrate my new beginning.

I’m an expert procrastinator, with so many reasons and rationalizations to postpone a desire of my heart.

 

Since I can’t be out in the field photographing my clients I’m digging through my archives, finding inspiration in the beauty of those who’ve trusted me with their memories and hearts over the years. You know, those that didn’t delay; didn’t put off their photographs until another time. 

In my excavation I came across this image from last spring.

A favourite from a wild session that Courtney and Lo indulged me in at the very last moment when I became enamoured with a magnolia tree in full bloom. I had always wanted to photograph beneath a tree heavy with flowers and by the time I noticed the trees in bloom, they were nearly past their prime.

But in a rare moment of decisiveness, I asked this beautiful duo to model for me.

I’m so happy they obliged. Not for the photographs it yielded. There aren’t many. And it was a pretty crazy session, though a few lovely ones were created. I’m happy one year later—one year older and wiser—to have made something from a place of impulse and vision. Even if it wasn’t exactly as I had planned, it no longer lives in my imagination.  

So… here’s to more vision and less delay on the other side of this!