A Place of Rest... or Not.

This simple photo of a chair speaks volumes to me. Not because it is some great photo... although I do like its simplicity, but for what it represents, as it is with many of my photos for me. Their meaning to my experience.

I had set it up early in the morning of the last hours of a wonderful Bahamas family vacation years ago. In it, I sought a place to just sit and soak in the peace and easy natural beauty that was there for me, the warm breeze, quiet waves at my feet, a new sun… just the very idea of rest and solitude. I sat there for a seemingly long time... alone... just trying to take in as much as I could for I knew it would end soon. Out there, straight ahead in the distance was Europe and while people there were busy  laboring and learning and all of that, I was just sitting... resting. Airports and travel and challenges all lay ahead of me and as life and work and pressures all would return, I knew they would pull this memory slowly from my mind and I wanted it to stick.  

 There have been many other such 'chairs' for me, whether they would be a quiet spot in my bamboo grove or upon a drum ‘throne’ (I always disliked that term for the record) or an airline seat or even a pew… spots that I no longer occupy for a variety of reasons from ones I simply can't, to ones that are unaffordable, to others now that are now unwelcome to me, but this one... this little plastic lawn chair at the water’s edge, is the one that I want to most return to, for it held more than just a temporary respite for my body alone. 

All of these chairs in life offer something different, some a place to be energized, some to share fellowship or good food shared with friends and still others to take you somewhere perhaps exciting and new, but this one was special. A small quiet space where thoughts waned and breaths slowed and I closed my eyes and felt like I was not missing anything but stress. A place where the thoughts in my head followed only the rhythm of the waves. A special spot for me indeed… Maybe you have one too and I hope that what ever life throws at you, in it you might be able to return one day to that 'space' and find the peace that I had in my heart that day. 

Such chairs are much to rare.