“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.” ― Rumi

“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.” 
― Thich Nhat Hanh

I don't think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.” 
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl


For me, as I have said a million times over, photography is where one of my joys lives. I will not call my latest endeavor artful or artistic - I will call them light sketches. Light doodles.

This evening the lighting was fading fast as I was cleaning years of dust and stories off of a little perfume bottle: Eau De JOY JEAN PATOU Paris. When I finished I placed it near our kitchen window, noticing how soft the air was. Even though my boys can be JOYfully excitable and fantastically loud, in my head it was silent for five minutes - an oasis of nothing and everything all at once. We don't have any form of cable or rabbit ears. When I zone out, from time to time, it is not in front of a television (although we do watch movies) it is behind my camera. While it is in my hands, that is where everything makes sense. Yes, that is where some of my joy resides. 

And it makes me smile.