Crossing thresholds

Thanks to a lovely friend - the same one who got me involved in the photo challenge I did in the month of December - I am embarking on another photo challenge.  This one is a 52 week challenge, so one photo a week for all of 2013.  I'm so excited to do this, and very much enjoyed the experience of doing the December one.  Besides, as my lovely friend said, a year through the camera could do me some good.  I agree!

This first week's theme was crossing thresholds.  As usual, I struggled with what to do...  not because I didn't have ideas, but because I'm often rather sad, as any of you who read my blog have probably figured out by now.  (Doesn't take a Dr. Freud to call that one, right?)  When I think of crossing thresholds, I picture beauty and excitement and promise.  Yet that image doesn't jive with the threshold I see before me.  I do not wish to cross this threshold before me.

One small problem I had with the December photo challenge was that it seemed everyone made everything look so beautiful - so perfect. Hardly seems like a problem right?  Capturing beauty is obviously one of the lovely things about photography - and Christmas certainly is a beautiful time of year to capture.   Oh, but all these depictions of beautifully perfect family and home life.  Sometimes it hardly seemed real, but it was beautiful and I wanted it.  Kind of like Captains Kirk and Picard in the Nexus (Star Trek: Generations.  Yes, I am a nerd.)

No one's life is perfect, though, of course, but seeing some of the pictures people posted often gave me that old familiar twinge....    I wished I had the beauty presented before me, and the skills to capture it.

I wished I had adorable babies and children to pose and capture their preciousness.

But all I have is my oh so incredibly far from perfect life.  Yet there are glimpses of perfect beauty even within such dreadful imperfection.  There really is, and I'm so grateful for them.   Maybe they're made even more beautiful because of the surrounding dreadfulness.  In any case, they are perhaps a bit more difficult to capture in photos.  And I do so want the beautifully perfect life I see in others' photos.

Sometimes I wonder about the concept of the beauty of imperfection.   As a very small example, I prefer my food homey - not gourmet.  My food seldom ends up looking perfectly beautiful, like in the magazines - but I think it's all the more beautiful as it is.

So... could I start to see my life the way I see my cooking?  I never wish the food I prepare looked more perfect - never!  I truly prefer my homeyness.  It's so real.  And real is so delicious.  Can I transfer that to my life?   Perhaps that's what I was thinking when I recently picked up this new plaque (above).

Well, I honestly don't know, but I do know that today in church a couple and their beautiful baby came in and sat in front of me.  I could barely take my eyes off the child.  The father was doting on this baby like nobody's business.

And....  oh how I want that.  And... oh why can't I have that?

The melancholy settled over me like a wet blanket.  I prayed and prayed, but it seemed to just wrap itself tighter around me.

I keep thinking I'm on the threshold of letting go, of truly and finally laying this all on the alter... and sometimes I am pretty sure I've done just that, but then....   

X always equals infertility.  

Even if I could truly and finally let go, when will it let go of me?

After all, I didn't start out with the melancholies this morning...  I felt quite pleasant. I had a lovely day yesterday, getting lost and taking pictures...  seeking something that would depict this threshold of mine, this threshold less crossed...  this threshold I have no desire to cross...  this threshold I know I must cross. It's a little nebulous in my mind still, but this is what I sought.  Truly, I delighted in getting lost.  I hiked around and got my feet wet with snow... I huffed and puffed up some hills.  I breathed. I saw great beauty and felt contentment and peace, even in my constant sense of loss.

Yet the sight of one precious baby and her doting father brought the melancholies on me in a rather big way.

The threshold less crossed...