I woke up this morning (about 3 hours earlier than usual) planning to go skiing. You see, Copper Mountain got a foot of snow last night, and if there’s one thing my K2 skis love it’s the fresh pow. So my friend and I met up and headed for the mountains. There are two ways to get there– the back way and through Denver. We prefer the back way because *hello* Denver traffic! But after 30 minutes of slushy swerving (we were in the middle of some crazy spring winter weather here, too, involving lightning, thunder, hail, and rain), we decided 50 miles of that would put us over the edge. So we turned around.
Denver, here we come! After another 30 or 40 minutes of slushy swervy, we were driving in okay conditions and thinking we would make it. Until we hit the Amber alert sign about 5 minutes from our major exit tell us I-70 is closed. Just … closed. Just one of the two major interstates that cuts through one of the biggest cities in the US… closed. Just after we had been in the car about 2 hours already. I had told my friend about 45 minutes earlier, “Let’s just not force this if it’s not meant to be. Let’s read the signs.”
The Amber alert sign was pretty clear!
So, our day that was meant to have been full of fresh powder and shredding the gnar was actually spent just driving 200 miles in my car. In slush. In yuckiness. But honestly, when I look back on this day, I will smile. I will smile because we laughed SO HARD in the car SO many times– at how many times my friend missed our exit and had to turn around to get it (3, if you’re wondering), at funny things that had happened the night before, at the thought of wandering around nice Denver shopping malls in our ski pants, at whatever it is that girls laugh about when we’ve hit giggle o’clock and everything is funny. We ended up getting a delicious breakfast (hello, Snooze) and becoming facebook friends with the women at the table next to us (who also gave us a whole yummy pancake!), and then laughing more about our ridiculous day.
This photograph, and countless other pieces of art I’ve made, have a similar story. This was taken with a toy camera that does 4 photos on one frame of a negative. It’s super fun for just playing around, capturing motion, and such. This photo was supposed to be my roommate jumping off of a table, which… would’ve been an alright photo, I suppose. Nothing award-winning. But light leak happened! Happened to the whole roll, and while I was disappointed at first, I LOVE the light and the colors that came out on all these photos. I have used some from this series on Thank You cards and on backgrounds for other pieces, because I think they function like beautiful abstract art– not like the literal photos I was intending.
We have got to let things become what they need to become. Like our art. Like our photos. Like my “ski” day. Like our lives. Let’s not waste time forcing things. Let’s listen for the deeper voice behind life and let it say what it wants to say. Let’s force things less and surrender more.
You may not get to ski, but you may have a different set of memories that you’ll never forget 🙂
