Time capsuled

When it rains, it pours…and when it pours, it’s difficult to take pictures. This morning after a drenching dog-walk in which almost-freezing puddles pooled on last week’s ice and hard-packed snow, I reviewed last month’s photo folders to find something to post today. After I’d found some images from a sunnier day to share, I took a peek into my blog archives to see if I was suffering the “is it spring yet” blog-blahs this time last year, too.

What I found was the “before” to the above “after“. It seems that roughly one year later, the abandoned paint and wallpaper shop in the above photo is still in need of a fix-up. I guess one way to avoid cleaning windows is to get rid of your windows entirely…or lacking motivation to do that, let bored vandals do it for you.

Any photo-blogger knows it’s wise to save up images for a rainy day, or week, or is-it-spring-yet season. Not knowing when life will get busy, the weather will turn, or you’ll fall prey to a Don’t Wanna Wednesday, you’d be wise to stock up on ideas and images in case of blog-emergency.

Unfortunately, time is perishable: it can’t be stockpiled like canned soup or beans or other emergency rations. Looking back on that post from last March, I see the more things change, the more they stay the same. The dissertation and creativity coaching I mentioned then has fallen (intentionally) by the wayside: these days, I’m too busy teaching, blogging, and trying to have a life to spend much time cultivating the creativity of others. And yet, yesterday I received a brimming basket of peace lilies by way of thank-you from a PhD candidate I’d coached to completion: a reminder of success. Progress does indeed happen even (or especially) when you aren’t expecting it.

In that post from last March, it almost sounded like I was giving up blogging; instead, in retrospect I recognize I was looking to re-focus and re-define what I do here and how it fits into an active life. They say the unexamined life is not worth living, and I’d argue the opposite as well: the un-lived life is not worth examining. Before you can sit down to consider what your Ultimate Existence is all about, you have to stand up and get on with the business of living with its dog-walks, icy puddles, and broken windows. Progress does indeed happen even (or especially) when you aren’t expecting it, and roughly one year later after wondering aloud what I’m doing here, here I am still doing it. Whatever didn’t get fixed up last March, it seems, is doing okay this time around.