Park Day

Shortly following the successful shopping outing, I called up my friend and neighbour Laurel, who recently came back from Waterloo, to hang out.  I felt empowered with a new sense of motivation and was eager to get more photos.

Unfortunately, not everything always goes as planned.  It was a lazy, sunny day, and both Laurel and I were in whatever shorts and t-shirt we found lying around the house.  We headed to the park to sit and catch up and naturally gravitated to the swings, and then the see-saw (we're grown adults, we can sit on whatever we want).

I snapped up this shot:

and just the raise and lower of my camera drained all the energy I had in my arms.  My camera felt like the weights at the gym that I never lift because just looking at them made me tired.  I had to face the fact that I simply didn't want to take photos today.  The motivation I left the house with was somehow left back at the house, and my camera was nothing more than dead weight.

I tried not to get too upset, as the start-up of any project is always more exciting than the following-through.  Then, something happened.

It was a moth, small and brown and inexplicably resting on the cement, just a meter or so away from the bench where Laurel and I were sitting.  I felt a twinge of the motivation returning, but was quickly discouraged by my rational mind: "it'll just fly away if you try to get close enough to take a photo".  I turned to focus on my conversation with Laurel but I found myself looking back to the moth.  The children at the playground would run towards it, startling it, but it would still land on same spot.  My curiosity was peaked.  What was it doing?  Moths don't eat cement, right?  Why does it keep coming back to that one spot?

Finally, as we got up to leave, I decided to give the moth a chance.  After all, it stayed for all this time.

So I began to creep, slooowwly, and madly clicking away with every centimeter of advancement:

Documenting the creeping process

..and all the while, in complete disbelief that the moth still hasn't flown away yet.  But the most amazing thing was when I was so close I was practically kissing the pavement, it did this:

BAM! What a flirt!

I actually have a bajillion shots, all with different focal points, but this one was my favourite.  I love how despite being a rather plain looking moth from afar, it actually has very pretty blue-grey spots that can only be appreciated up close.

This may sound silly, but I want to thank that moth.  Thank you, Mr Moth,  for reminding me of an important philosophy: that sometimes it's better to let things come naturally rather than forcing it to happen.  If you chase too hard after that moth, it'll fly away; but maybe if you take it one step at a time and you're not afraid to go slow, you'll be rewarded with something beautiful.