a bowl of cherries...

that's it.
life is.

i'm seeing so much pain and heartache
going on around me.
loss of loved ones.
need of a break because
of feeling burned out.
sickness and disease.
financial struggle.
job loss.
job stress.
broken relationships.

i'm reminded every day
by visiting blogs and making friends
that there are so many struggles
that we all face on a daily basis.
but i'm also encouraged every day,
by the help and outpouring of support
and encouragement that is right there too––
from complete strangers.
from acquaintances.
from friends.

so i was happy when taking pictures today
of the cherries that cost me a bundle––
cherries i should not have bought,
because we are trying to cut back
on the extras right now.

but i realized,
there are just some things
that i don't want to let go of
no matter how hard it gets.
i don't want to stop eating ice cream.
i don't want to stop buying summer cherries.
i don't want to stop having coffee with a friend,
every once in a while––
even if it costs four or five times more
than what it would cost to make it at home.
i want to keep drinking my favorite lemonade.

in other words, sometimes there is so little
for us to actually really call our own
in this life.
and that's okay.
it's the little things
like coffee.
cherries.
lemonade.
ice cream.
that make a day sweet.
no matter how difficult life gets.

and life is...
sweet.
precious.
full.
wonderful.
too short
to not eat cherries.

i couldn't find more joy
than i do in picking up my camera
and taking some silly pictures.
pictures of color––the brightest green.
pictures of shapes and negative space.
pictures of light and shadow
blending into one.
pictures of abounding sweetness
in just one small cherry.
pictures of wealth––
the kind that comes from
being rich with gratitude
not with dollars.
taking pictures...
one of life's cherries
in its own bowl full of many.

i think cherries were
my dad's favorite fruit.

did you ever notice
how the words cherry and cheery
are so close––just one letter off?

i'm happy today.
life is good.
it's not perfect.
but it's good.
probably one day very soon,
i will find it less easy to say.
but right now,
i feel that my life is good.
and i feel blessed.

i hope you do as well.
if you don't,
then i pray that you will.
when i don't,
please pray that i will, too.
{written july 20th, 2009}

{so i took all kinds of photos of cherries yesterday, because i've been seeing a lot of them around lately––and because they looked so pretty in my green colander that i rinsed them in. i took a bunch of focused shots, but because of the zoom in on the shiny bowl, it often would not focus. {{by the way, does anyone know why that is?––why it is so hard to focus on shinier objects especially while zoomed in?}} anyway, sometimes the camera would focus, and other times it would not. at first i was frustrated, but then i realized i sort of liked the way it looked when the focus was blurred—a fancy word for not-focused. so i just rolled with it. then a few hours later, i visited a new blog that is making a whole series out of these kind of shots. someone else {{alicia}} was thinking the same thing—sometimes they just look cool like that. normally i would put a shot like this on ethereal, but i decided to post it here instead. here are some of the focused shots––and maybe another blurred or two.}