Oh, Saturday morning. Isn’t today the big day? Big plans, plenty to do? Action packed places to go, people to see? After a very solid week’s work, 48 hours of me-time. So, get up and go! Go! Go!

Can I check back with you later after a cup of coffee or two?

Just kidding. It has been a most productive day. Perhaps one of the most productive in a long time.

Manifesto
19. Every day make time for yourself.
27. Every day pain is a sign of growing.
32. Every day have a laugh.

I launch a mini blitz on the office. I like an organised work space. Some times I achieve an organised work space for minutes at a time. I don’t really relate to the culture of stark, sterile work spaces – I appreciate some people are like this, but I think a little bit of clutter lets in space for fragments of creativity to creep in around the edges. Infecting this kind of a culture seems like a good thing. I still try for a more organised space. It’s a work in progress.

Manifesto
04. Every day is an opportunity to cultivate the promise of the future.
16. Every day looking at the order of things gives you power.
22. Every day refine, clarify and simplify.

My office overlooks our city’s Civic Square. It is the most spectacular view. Every day as I look out any of the numerous windows that line the walls I always take the time to soak in the moment and feel grateful. These windows are living picture frames. The natural, every day art works enclosed within these rectangles always move me in some way. I am forever grabbing my camera to try and capture the memory of what I see before me but none of these photos ever truly do justice to the experience of what I see and feel.

Today as I was working away one of my colleagues told me to look out the window. I saw an older couple walking across the square holding hands. They seemed so in tune and connected with one another. They looked like they loved and cared for one another. I found myself smiling as I watched them walk.

“That’s what you and Lynsey will be like,” my colleague said to me.

As I reflected on this scene I remembered a poem Lynsey and I read to each other on our wedding day – Let’s grow old together.

Let’s grow old together …
beginning with today.
Let’s work slowly with each other and build a relationship that we can both enjoy being a part of.
Let’s share love and understand that neither of us is perfect; we are both subject to human frailties.
Let’s hold each other close and whisper though the night – pledging our love, honouring our commitment.
Let’s encourage each other to pursue our dreams, even when we’re weary from trying.
Let’s expect the best that we both have to give and still love when we fall short of our expectations.
Let’s be friends and respect each other’s individual personality and give one another room to grow.
Let’s be candid with each other and point out strengths and weaknesses.
Let’s understand each other’s personal philosophy, even if we don’t agree.
Let’s lie awake long into the night sharing our innermost secrets.
Let’s be friends as well as lovers.
Let’s laugh at time and plan with each other and wonder how we ever got along without this love we’ve found.
Let’s never take for granted these moments that we’ve shared, but always be reminded of how intensely we have learned to live, how completely we have learned to love.
Let’s grow old together…
and look back on life and smile.
- Braxton Brown and Peggy Smith

Manifesto
03. Every day is an opportunity to reflect on the past.
04. Every day is an opportunity to cultivate the promise of the future.
05. Every day is now. The present moment.

I wonder about the people in their cars – are they set on going home because there’s something special awaiting them there, or will it be the same-old same-old, food where form follows function, and a grope for the remote control. After a day at the office what more could you ask for?

I begin to feel uncomfortable about the time I’m spending on the shoot. Don’t I have to be somewhere else, doing something else, somehow more important? Interesting thought. After some reflection (and a few more shots) I decided that no, right here, right now was the somewhere, something, and somehow that was important. I could ease a gap into my time somewhere else. Or forget about it. The ultimate outcome will remain the same, for all of us.

The photographs I make, and the writing that I do, is what I have to say. What is it that you have to say, and how do you say it? I’ve been thinking a lot about this recently. What is our/my time here all about, and how will this be expressed when we go? It’s easy to get involved in a huge slice of busy-work – get to the office, get to the game, deliver the kids, make the meal, mow the lawn, watch this do that be this be that…

The time is gone,
the song is over,
thought I’d something more to say — Pink Floyd – Time from Dark Side of the Moon

I’ve realised that for me, it’s not the individual photograph, or selected collection of words that defines me; any more than a cook is defined by a specific meal, a hunter by a certain kill, or a preacher by a specific sermon. Rather it is the coherent body of work – the portfolio – driven by, and built over time, more often than not created unconsciously, that describes us at a higher level that provides the lasting definition.

Our individual decisions and acts provide the polish on the faces of the gem of our life.

Manifesto
06. Every day you make choices.
07. Every day making no choice is a choice.
25. Every day your light shines for others to see.

I dropped off to sleep and it was one of those wonderful free dives into the ocean – deep, dark, endless.

I woke some time later beyond refreshed. I could recall the edge of a dream – the feeling rather than any specifics. I felt terrific – the feeling was as though I’d been away for a very long time – a very extended journey, and now I was back. Back, and feeling great about having been there and back.

I wondered about this – for me it’s a time when the fragrance of change is in the air. Autumn. Seasons. Flavours. I’m ready to come back – ready for the changes that are shaping up. It feels good. Great.

I know a number of you are on the road or are on journeys or are out of sight of land. You know who you are. It’s ok. It’ll work out fine. Come home, come back when you’re ready. Don’t rush it, there’s no need. Trust yourself. We love you. Look for the signs. Find the wings. The road awaits. It’s within. Your heart. Your dream.

Manifesto
02. Every day is an opportunity for a new beginning.
19. Every day make time for yourself.
36. Every day be still. Connect to your inner being. Listen and be guided by it.

Many writers have opted for the lyrical approach – that nature is somehow getting revenge or there’s an evil master plan. I think that’s just some fluffy, infantile effort to put humans at the centre of the universe. And then there’s the act of god people, and I think that’s just as fluffy. And finally the news casters – the best I’ve seen was the young Japanese lad giving his English translation of the television broadcasts, seemingly from a studio set up in his bedroom – contrasting the local interviewers who, desperate to get a story (amidst the story of their life) kept asking people what did they do immediately after the person had just explained what had happened and what they had just done. Yapping like a puppy. Anything to fill the silence.

I think that what has made the real difference in these events, the untold story, is far too intimate to be caught by broadcast. Far too human.

It is in the countless tiny, simple stories that are played out everywhere, every day, all around the world.

I have my friend, my loved one, once again. I see. I touch. I hear them, taste them, smell them. I know that they are ok.

After the silence that rings deafeningly, I have them back, and I breathe, and I can hear my breathing.

For some, however, the silence still continues to ring.

Manifesto
06. Every day you make choices.
10. Every day connect with somebody.
18. Every day express love. Some people need to hear it. Most people need to see it. Don’t take it for granted.

While making the shot I wondered about the apple – to me, a food as well as a concept or an idea that resonates in so many ways of ‘home’. I could call up many memories in which apples had a role. Ubiquitous, but anything but common. Humble yet noble, the everyman (or woman) fruit.

If I was travelling to a far-off place what would I take? I decided that like the Victorians, yes, I think I probably would take an apple tree or two with me – for the fruit, the wood, for the love, for home, and for my new home. Across the globe, across the years.

Manifesto
04. Every day is an opportunity to cultivate the promise of the future.
14. Every day the ordinary can be the extraordinary.
30. Every day use all your senses. Touch. Smell. Taste. Hear. See.

Taking in a deep breath I can smell the moisture, the parsley, the thyme, and the sun-warmed linen. The birds are calling, somewhere a lawn mower is meditating. Later summer, perhaps.

Lately everything seems there yesterday, gone today. For the moment, there was a silence, a stillness. The whole world catching a breath, taking a moment. And then the curtain ever-so-slowly, gently, drawn out by a restless breeze.

I breathed out.

Manifesto
02. Every day is an opportunity for a new beginning.
05. Every day is now. The present moment.
48. Every day there are things you can’t change. You can change the way you think about them and deal with them.

Tonight we’ll watch a movie, maybe two. We’ll eat the pizza and perhaps have some fresh fruit for dessert. We’ll probably chat with comfortable silences in between where we’ll read, write, or craft something new. We’ll shut the door on the storms of the week and take/make sanctuary in our own cozy little world. For a short work week it’s been extra filled of the madnesses of our day jobs – stuff that in a few weeks, maybe even days will be irrelevant or at least forgotten beyond bad memories and an unpleasant aftertaste.

And that’s the magic of pizza made from fresh ingredients and seasoned with love. Like work we won’t remember the exact pizza, but we will easily remember the atmosphere, the flavour, and the aftertaste.

Manifesto
05. Every day is now. The present moment.
18. Every day express love. Some people need to hear it. Most people need to see it. Don’t take it for granted.
29. Every day eat, drink, rest, work, exercise, play, love, create for your own good. And the good of others.

Simple. Elegant.

Could we be richer?

Manifesto
18. Every day express love. Some people need to hear it. Most people need to see it. Don’t take it for granted.
30. Every day use all your senses. Touch. Smell. Taste. Hear. See.
42. Every day celebrate. Who you are. What you have achieved. Things that matter to you.