This photo from my Flickr page has been getting a lot of praise, I thought I’d quickly tell its story.
I was feeling a bit down on Saturday after Friday night’s odd behaviour and also after a three-day meeting in Grenoble during the week for work which I found very discouraging. Among the thing I wanted to do was my laundry but I was out of products. I finally got my lazy arse into gear around midday and walked, with my rucksack on, to get a box of Ecover washing powder and fabric softener from my local organic product shop. But, this if France:
They were closed!
As I walked back, determined not to let this minor setback tip me into feeling self-pity, I said to myself:
“Ah, I wonder what the other reason for this trip will turn out to be.”
I was sure there was another reason for it, there usually is. And then I forgot about it and walked back home concentrating on being present in the moment and in my body and not dwelling on my choices around work and social life in France. I stopped on the way to take a picture of some guys painting graffiti on the wall of a derelict building.
Self-pity is the difference between feeling a bit down and being depressed. When I’m feeling a bit down these days I take it as a sign that my feeling are telling me something. I have something to learn from this weekend, but that will be another blog entry a bit later.
When I do that: concentrate on being in the moment, I find I am more likely to notice stuff around me, and when I got close to the railway bridge — so almost home — I spotted this one perfect yellow flower in a massive bush of them by the side of the road. Its as if this one flower had jumped out at me. When I looked at the others they were all lovely but not quite such a perfect shape. I stood in an ungraceful position trying to hold the camera still and put my other hand up-wind of the flower to stop it vibrating in the wind. The light was terrible: grey clouds, but I was doing this for my amusement rather than for the flicker macro group. I was concentrating on the shot so much — I took about seven — that I didn’t notice the little bee arrive. I’d almost certainly not have held my hand so close!
When I got back I spotted a great graffiti picture by a guy I met on the Eurostar one day. I was struck by the similarity with the on I had just taken and uploaded my photos including the yellow flower.
Now everyone loves the yellow flower, it has attracted loads of comments and one of them has told me that it’s St John’s Wort. What a perfect antidote to depression!