You Shouldn't Be Able to Capture It All

My mom would lull her camera to every special occasion in our lives. From birthday parties to championship games, there she was with her Canon. I have fond memories of going to Monarch Photo on 25^th Street in Fargo to develop and pick up our prints. We would sit in the mini-van and flip through the stack of memories while we talked about the stories that went beyond the faces in the pictures.

Her camera was worn more around her neck than any piece of jewelry and coincidentally enough, now I do the same. I’m what we like to call a “pictureaholic” and my friends know that if they don’t capture something on their iPhone, I will. 14 times.

With school staring next Monday, this is my final week of summer. I’m ready for routine and busyness and leaving my house at 5:30am and not returning until 7pm (Is that normal?). I look forward to a new group of kids, new responsibilities including math tutoring, and watching K grow both socially and academically for another year.

Being that my days of having a flexible schedule are numbered, Nicole and I took full advantage of it. We hit the road at 5:30am and headed west. Final destination: Hanging Lake in Glenwood Springs. When I was looking at pictures before we left, every-single-one of them looked fake. The colors of the water and the trees looked identical to something you would see while flipping through the pages of a children’s book with the plot taking place in a fantasy land.

Once we started the hike up to the lake, I immediately started pushing the "big button on the top" down over and over again, trying to capture the beauty that surrounded me as best I could. At times I would pull away from my camera and look in awe of the snapshot just taken, while other times I looked at the screen with disappointment as it simply didn't look like what I was seeing in person.

 

When we reached Hanging Lake, it was clear why this is one of the most popular hikes in Colorado and dubbed the 8th Wonder of the World by…me. I continued to click away and continued to get frustrated as to why my camera wasn't encapsulating what I was asking it to. I gave up and sat down next to Nicole on the wooden bench.

"This is when you put your camera down and capture it all with your eyes, your mind, and your heart."

As we sat there, I let it all sink in. My surroundings, the sounds of other onlookers, the feeling of being so in love with a part of nature I had only been in for a mere ten minutes. There were things I was a part of at that second in time where I couldn't catch with my camera and maybe that's how life is suppose to be. 

Maybe the moments that we can't capture through a lens are the moments that are meant to be lived.