finding beauty

We’re coming to the end of the school year with all the tension involved in wrapping up the term -assignments and portfolios to be found and finished, performances rehearsed and attended, last-minute preparations for our summer back in the USA, which for me includes paperwork and planning for the first full-time job I've had since before I had kids.  I’m working across time zones to try to sell our house in the US.  We recently took in an orphaned newborn kitten who requires a bottle of formula every few hours. The heat outside has been rising, forcing us all to stay indoors much more than we'd like. I’m using most of what little attention remains after two weeks of nights broken up by kitten-feedings on making sure everyone is fed and that we survive the school runs through Doha’s ridiculous traffic.  On top of all of this,  I'm one of the unlucky few who coffee does not help.  What does help is finding ways to connect to and try to enjoy where I am, in the moment. What follows is the best way I've found yet.  So good, in fact, that I'm going to take a chance and suggest you try it too. 

I got a DSLR a few weeks ago, as a much-hinted-for late birthday present.  I started by just bringing it along with me in the car on school runs, on my morning walk, to the camel market with my daughter. I took pictures of all the things I’d noticed before but to which I couldn’t do justice with the tiny lens and limited pixels of my iPod, no matter how many filter apps I downloaded.

It isn’t that I am instantly taking stunning pictures, but that the more beauty I look for, the more I’m finding.  I have a new appreciation of the quality of light in Doha, whether it is the harsh glare of mid-day, the long afternoon rays, or the rainbow colors that light up the shrubbery in my neighborhood and the mosques and the skyscrapers at night. I love the patterns from the shadows, that moment when the light is shooting out between the ever-present layer of dust near the ground and the early morning clouds above it.

I can try to capture exactly what I see, I can draw out the few colors that break up the sun-bleached drab or I can even frame them tightly, imagining for just a moment that my world really is entirely made up of the flame orange and glossy green of the blossoming trees in the park.  Now details are popping out all over, some that can make me laugh out loud even when it’s just me and the dumpster cats out on the street at dawn. The thickly-eyelashed, silky-nosed curious camels at the market have made me love the color beige after all.

I usually won’t tell you what I think you should do in order to be happy. I can’t stand that kind of bossing around.  But, for a change, I will make a suggestion for you, especially if you are not feeling entirely happy with your current situation wherever and whatever it may be: Get out your camera. Buy or borrow a new camera if you don’t have one that gives you some control over exposure, aperture, sensitivity. Take notice of any and all beauty around you. Seek it out. Take pictures. My new camera has been exactly what I needed, perfect for this disgruntled sleep-deprived expat housewife looking for beauty wherever she can find it.