“Look, I want to love this world
as though it’s the last chance I’m ever going to get
to be alive and know it.” ~ Mary Oliver

I haven’t posted on this blog since the November election. Today is my last chance this year to share my thoughts in words and pictures here. I have been reviewing the reasons I started this blog in my 50th year and continued it for a dozen years so far. It has served me well as a platform for family photo projects. Today, particularly, I am grateful for the opportunity to revisit the projects I did for my mother, who would have been celebrating her 90th birthday today. Ten years ago, I did an eight-day series from Christmas Eve to New Year’s Eve that I called “80 Years in 8 Days” (you can see it HERE). I also created The Grandparent Project on this blog primarily for her.

However, as my mom passed away in 2020 and I live within an hour’s driving distance of three out of four of my kids, I no longer rely on this blog as a way of sharing stories and photos across the miles.

I have really enjoyed exploring creative photography over the years through the weekly photo challenges I’ve done with WordPress and later Lens-Artists. Recently, I’ve been taking more photos with my cell phone rather than my Canon Rebel T3i. I also got a new laptop and lost the photo editing software that had been installed on my old one. The technology involved in creating a photo blog post has changed for me, therefore, and I haven’t really spent the time yet to figure out how to do it at a level that I find satisfactory.

“We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation. This may well be mankind’s last chance to choose between chaos and community.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

All that being said, I have the opportunity today to consider what I want this blog to be going forward into a brand new year. “Scillagrace” is still me striving to navigate life gracefully, showing in words and images the beauty of the process. Right now, I’m finding the progressive edge of my purpose in serving the local community. I’m volunteering with several different organizations: the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, Greenbelt Land Trust, Ankeny Hill and Finley National Wildlife Refuges, the Benton County Historical museums, and the Majestic Theater. (I’m currently in rehearsal for a production of the play Amadeus with two family members!) My goal is to build community by growing in compassion and resilience and helping others. I am not sure how I will incorporate creative photography and story-telling into this, but I will be exploring the possibilities.

I want to thank Tina and the other Lens-Artists hosts for supporting this part of the blogging community. Thank you for the thought-provoking Challenges and for sharing your beautifully crafted images!

I journey into the New Year with appreciation and gratitude for the past and with the resolve to try again each day to let Love move in me and through me. May it be so.