The illusion of the ordinary

I enjoy taking nature pictures. I have no earthly idea what I'm doing, but I find the process relaxing and wonder-inducing.

A few months back, I got to talking with my husband about photography, cameras, and the fun I've been having. In the course of the conversation, he commented, "You like to take really close-up pictures!" I giggled because it's true. I'm ever trying to carefully frame the closest image possible - moving in slowly while adjusting my focus, contorting myself into all sorts of unnatural positions to make it work, all the while attempting to avoid running into my "subject" with my camera lens (it happens more often than you would guess.) I must look like a raving lunatic sometimes!

His observation made me wonder...why do I do that? Why do I zoom in so close? Why don't I take pictures like normal people do? I honestly have no interest in taking pictures from a distance - the closer, smaller, and more detailed the better. Why is that?

Because I want to be amazed.

I do battle with the ordinary. Who knows why - some Freudian combination of my personality, my childhood, my twisted subconscious, and what I ate for dinner, no doubt. For some reason, I just don't like the word, and I dislike the concept even more. And usually, I see the things around me (and myself) as pretty ordinary. I'm a very ordinary girl, with an ordinary family, in an ordinary neighborhood, living an ordinary life. Nothing exceptional here, folks. Except...I just have this constant feeling that I might be wrong; that there might be more than I see.

My ordinary yard is your standard suburban 1/3 acre. It's nothing amazing. The grass used to look great, thanks to my husband. It doesn't anymore, thanks to my dog. I'm not a gardener like my mom, so my few small gardens are only lovely in my own imagination. (Oh, and my dog just ate my favorite plant too.) When I look out my kitchen window, I see an average backyard, complete with a faded swing set. But when I take the time to pick up my camera and zoom in closer, I find the most amazing and beautiful things in my ordinary yard...

A brave mother hidden among the rocks in my ugly, metal window-well

Tiny blooms, 1/4 inch wide, flourishing (against all odds!) from a lily of the valley plant that one of my kids stepped on and squished

And have you ever looked inside the tiny blossom of a lily of the valley? Awesome!

A miniature pine cone tucked between branches

Perfect, intricate symmetry in a common weed

Lacy veins in spinning seeds

The vast majority of my picture-taking occurs in my very own, rather ordinary, backyard. Most days, I miss the beauty. I rarely slow down or lean in enough to even see it. But it's there - hidden in the ordinary. It makes me wonder what other small treasures I miss in my "ordinary" life - nestled tender within my children's souls, quietly hidden between the rocks of life's difficulties, tucked away between the branches of my friendships, buried deep within my own heart. I want to take notice. I want to zoom in, focus, and snap the shutter.

The more years that pass, the more I'm convinced that God doesn't do ordinary.

Ordinary is just an illusion that hides the miraculous