In one of my blog entries last week, I crowed about my initial success at seizing the day. But I must report that since then all my attempts at day seizing have been complete and utter failures.
On my walk a few mornings after my carpe diem masterstroke, a downy looking bird lay still and limp on the asphalt beside my neighbor’s driveway. My first thought was, “Get a picture.” My second thought was, “You don’t have your camera,” and my third was, “Jolene, you’re sick. You just posted a dead frog picture. People don’t want to see a dead bird.” I assured myself that the bird wasn’t worth seizing and walked on.
But on my return trip, the little bird was sitting upright and breathing fast. “Now this,” I thought, “could turn into a zippy, chirpy blog entry about overcoming hardships and clinging to hope.” So I walked home, strapped on my camera bag and went back to photography Tweety. When I got there, Tweety had flown the coop, and all I got was a picture of bare asphalt, a sort of seize-the-day/take-the-camera visual reminder.
Yesterday morning I crossed the little bridge and heard a slight rustle ahead. I looked up to see a baby fawn standing on the road not ten feet away. Once again, I didn’t have my camera. The fawn leaped away and joined her mother and sibling by the stream.
The seizing failures were mounting at an alarming rate, and I vowed to remember my camera this morning, which I did. No wildlife, healthy or injured, made an appearance, but rain clouds were moving in. At one point, a rainbow tried to form, but it was a pathetic little glimmer of a thing. Besides I was anticipating my mammogram and physical, both of which create more of a squeeze than seize mentality, so I kept walking.
By the way, mammograms are now digital, but I forgot to ask the rad tech if she would email them to me so I could post them on my blog. So add another tick in the carpe diem failure column. Or put one in the thank God for small favors box, depending on your point of view. In fact, put two ticks in the thank God box. Because I forgot to take my camera to the mammogram appointment too. For that, we are all exceeding grateful.
