Stories in Pictures

I read once that you should start every day doing something that you love. So, every morning I write. It is ingrained. I reach for my pen and journal before I’ve fully opened my eyes. My morning journal entries could be anything. It could be a broken narrative of a dream with some profound analysis or deeply emotional memories or what happened yesterday that is still bugging me. Sometimes I write things that are charming in the same way that a 5 year old’s writing is charming: simple thoughts, in big letters, with occasional incoherence. The content isn’t important, but the act of writing is. Eventually I make a cup of tea, eat breakfast, and get ready for my day. 

This past week I was hosting a friend I knew from my undergrad and who lives in Toronto. I didn’t follow my routine. Despite proselytizing the benefits of this writing ritual and living the practice, I didn’t miss it. Maybe because I didn’t start the day writing, I found I simply didn’t have the same types of thoughts in my mind, the types of thoughts that would typically jump from my pen to a journal. Instead I slept in, I had conversations over breakfast, and I tried to get an early start on the first day of a road trip.
 
For the entire week, I hardly wrote at all. I wrote a page one morning on the red living room couch while my friend sent a few emails, and I wrote a page in our cabin in Cape Breton as I sipped a glass of wine while my friend was out smoking a cigar and drinking a glass of whiskey on the porch. 
 
I wasn’t writing but I was still creative; I took pictures. 


I don’t claim to be a professional photographer. Some of my photos were complete crap. But the pictures do tell stories. Because I took pictures, I have a story of walking on the road to Taylor Head Provincial Park and finding the most beautiful white sand beach. I have a story of the changing landscape as my friend and I drove from Halifax to Ingonish in Cape Breton. I have a story of a hike on a snowy mountain in April, the rivers of melting snow, and of enjoying a gorgeous view of the bay before losing the trail and eventually turning back. I have a story of reading in a rocking chair while my friend played his mandolin in the low light.

I didn’t write this past week because I didn’t need to write then. I needed to enjoy the moment and take quick shots to remind me of things I want to write now.