This week Tina from Travels and Trifles is asking us about gratitude and what we are grateful for. I find this a hard concept to get my head around, as I don’t think we, as Australians, think like that. I have tried to get my head to work out what I could do and I realised that while we don’t think gratitude, we do think lucky. That is the word that comes to mind. We feel lucky when we have wonderful things in our lives, and unlucky when bad stuff happens.
I suppose since we don’t do Thanksgiving here is not something that we are really told to think about and we never really share what we are grateful or lucky for. We just quietly accept that we are for what we have.
So how do I do this post, that is the question.
I suppose I can look at the things that I’m lucky for, which probably will translate to gratitude in some way. I’m lucky to have my husband and daughters, but none of them want their photos here, so you have to take my word for it that I do have a husband and two daughters.
I feel very lucky for the life I have now as I see so many people in the world whose lives are just horrible for one reason or another. I feel quite safe here on the other side of the world with everything that is going on around the planet. Also one of the things I love about Melbourne is that we don’t really experience many natural disasters or storms. We do get some, but on a much smaller scale than most other places. Wind and rain are the worst we seem to get.
So maybe I will start there.
My home.
The first three photos are from near where I live and the other three are from the city of Melbourne. This is a city that I love and feel so lucky to live in. It has been very good to me in many ways and I’ve never regretted the decision I made 38 years ago to move here.
My garden.
When we first purchased our house one thing I thought would be fantastic was the garden. I was 6 months pregnant when we moved here and then I had a baby, so you can imagine how much gardening I really did. Over the years I had tried to get stuff done, but things always got in the way.
The pandemic for all the bad things that did happen, was a period of luck for me. I loved being home all the time and it finally gave me the opportunity to get my macro garden going. I had always wanted a garden that I could grow flowers in and then use them for macro photography. I feel like I am finally getting there and now I feel so lucky that we never sold our house or moved somewhere that didn’t have space for a garden.
Here is a selection of flowers that I have photographed from my garden in the last few years.
Photography saved my sanity.
It can never be denied that photography really did do wonders for me when we were going through a not so lucky time. Some horrible things happened with one of our daughters which meant visiting police, court appearances and trying to give our daughter the support she needed. When you go through something like that you have to have something that helps you keep yourself together. For me, that was getting out to take photos. Going out with friends who were separated from it all and just letting me be me for a short time. I am so lucky that I had those friends and allowed the time to go out and take photos to express myself.
These are some of the photos I took way back when I was going through a lot of the unlucky stuff. I think the last one is very symbolic of what photography meant to me.
That was a bit heavy, but non the less, I am going to leave it there. Coming from a childhood that was all about survival in some ways, to being where I am now I know that I am and have been very lucky. I love my life now.
So thank you Tina for this introspection on our lives, interesting post really. I hope I have fit the brief. I ask the rest of you to please go and take a look at Tina’s post, the link is at the beginning here.
If you would like to participate in this great challenge then go to the following link to find out how to join the Lens-Artists Challenge, click here for more info. Don’t forget to put a link in your post back to the host.
