I crouched low to the ground trying to steady my hand as I inched my camera lens closer to the flower. After just a few shots, I was struck with the notion to “take a break.” Odd, considering I’d only just started trying to get a nice close-up picture of the lovely white clover blooms dotting our yard. When thoughts that seem random or even contradictory to what I’m doing pop into my head, I always stop to listen.

I rolled off my knees and stretched out my legs before folding them into the lotus position. Immediately I scanned around looking for something to take a picture of. A patch of overgrown grass waved in the breeze with the sun beginning to set behind it. “Ooo! Pretty!” [snap, snap, snap] I searched for my next potential shot when the lovely feeling of déjà vu washed over me.

Lately, rather than chasing after subjects for a picture, I’ve been sitting in nature and waiting to see what comes to me. Like, getting down low to take a picture of clover or grass or other plants, then insects start to land…

After seeing this beautiful beetle land beside me, I sat still and waited, hoping and wishing for more to appear. This really feels familiar. Sitting on the ground with grasses taller than my head around me. Hearing the soft whispered rustling of leaves…the songs of many birds…feeling the last of the day’s sun shining down on me. I suddenly remembered being nine years old and sitting in a patch of grass the neighbors had neglected to mow. There were dozens of bright, red ladybugs flying around my head looking for spots to land. I sat there for what felt like hours just watching, listening, sensing, being.

I sat in my yard, my forgotten camera in my lap, and remembered that long-ago day vividly, though I couldn’t recall the last time it had crossed my mind. But I knew I needed to think about the kid I used to be with hopes, dreams and ideas that were nothing but 100% possible because I hadn’t grown up enough yet to have those ideals squashed by the rules and expectations of adulthood. I need to be that girl again…I need to go back in time.

As the days passed, and I spent more time on the ground with my camera, I started recognizing clues in my life showing me that I must have already known that this was what I was supposed to do. My house was filled with the things that were my favorites “back in the day”… cabinets of board games and jigsaw puzzles, piles of stones and crystals on my desk, assorted crochet hooks and tubs full of yarn, a wardrobe of plain-Jane shirts and flared jeans, shelves lined with books by Dr. Seuss and C.S. Lewis, the complete Schoolhouse Rock series, the odd collection of quarters from 1979 and earlier. In the mirror I was seeing less makeup and longer hair and hearing no hateful internal commentary about my weight. And I had something else, something really important for my journey. I had a time machine…my camera.

The Nikon I have now is much nicer than the Kodak K40 V35 I bought in high school–the first camera that was actually mine and not the “family camera.” I spent around $115 for it at the Ben Franklin store in town…which was a fair amount when you only earned $3/hour at a part-time job in the local greenhouse. I was grateful for that job, because it helped pay for film and processing, which weren’t cheap, and I took A LOT of pictures!

Back then I focused my camera on people, but over the years I drifted away from humans and began focusing more on nature…it’s what I was meant to do. Because being down on the ground and looking up at the sky made me feel small…it made me feel just like I did as a child, full of wonder and awe about nature and silliness around a camera.

She’s always been there, waiting for me to let her out so she could run barefoot through the grass (bee stings on toes be damned!) and climb the highest pine trees again. Thanks to my love of photography, I was able to free her. We have been skipping through green pastures, chasing butterflies and ladybugs ever since.