new years

this year i've decided that i don't have a new years resolution, but i do have a goal.

i want to realize as much of life as possible.

emily gibbs after her death says:

"do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? - every, every minute?"

this after trying to go back and share her newfound zest for life with her family.

emily made me realize i'm just as ignorant as her family.

when i talk about life's beauty and 'realizing life' i'm talking about living in the moment; appreciating the moment - the sights, smells, food, colour, taste of everything in that moment.

the reason paintings, pictures and movies are so popular, is that they capture what it's like to exist at a given point in time.

why do we like them? -- they do what we don't. they capture, and so realize a moment in time. they let us realize life after we live it, much like we do when we reminisce.

when we reflect on our lives, we romanticize our experiences, and when we do that we finally realize and appreciate those minutes we failed to realize when we lived them.

there's a series of pictures my friend jeanette took of us on a bridge. to someone looking at those pictures all they are is jeanette on a misty bridge, and mitchell on a misty bridge. but to me, they're so much more:
jeanette and me went on a walk through downtown hamilton with the intent of capturing pictures of hamilton's beauty, but the day we chose was one of the coldest days i can remember. it was close to zero with high winds and freezing rain, we walked maybe two hours - me not wearing a coat and her telling me "mitch, wear your coat!". multiple times i borrowed her gloves because i couldn't stand the cold anymore, and then her batteries died, so each picture we took we had to turn the camera on and hope the camera would stay on long enough to take the picture, this bridge, we bought batteries just to take the pictures of us on the bridge. and then i had to make sure we were both on the right spot of the bridge so that it looked cool. then when i went to take the picture of jeanette on the bridge, i took it from multiple vantage points. so for me, each one of those pictures has a memory, a moment that's significant to me.

there's another picture that i just saw of me jumping on a trampoline with my friend, i hadn't seen that picture before, and it brought back all these memories of us hanging out going for hikes early in the morning, the smell of summer air. and then us anticipating our time at camp.

it's not about saying "oohhh that looks nice". when you look at a picture it's about realizing just how special that moment was: remembering how you felt, what it was like to be there, the friends you had and the times that you had.

it's about going back and living in those moments.

my goal this year, is to live in this moment, and realize life while i'm living it.