*just in case you don't read this blog, here's something I just posted there.

I had my camera with me this weekend, hoping to capture a few beautiful snapshots of time.
You know that John Mayer song, "3x5"? It's a gooder. All about...

you should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes
it brought me back to life
you'll be with my next time i go outside
no more 3x5's.

I heard that song shortly after my "triumphant" return from Australia. As I sat looking @ my 24 rolls of pictures (and grimacing @ just how much the development would cost me), and then as I sat thumbing through them all, i realized how many dozens of moments didn't come out the way I wanted them to, how many I can't actually remember seeing, how many out-of-lens-focus panoramas did I miss, how many smiles, how many subtle shifts in body movement, eye focus, sunlight, geckos chirping did I miss because I was too busy changing my film, or keeping my view inside the camera.

Surprising isn't it?

Even @ Rock Garden, where taking notes is more beneficial for me than listening, because I actually remember what Rikk says; during the final moments, I discipline myself to just listen and receive. To note the quiet passion and insistance and beauty and intensity and emotion in his voice; things my pen can't capture through its last-minute "did you get that reference?" scribblings.

And even here @ work...years from now, will I wish even for the FAAAAAAAAAAAK!!! moments, where I just wanted to strangle one of these kids? Will I yearn for the tears, the kicking, screaming, fighting, tattling, alongside smiles, hugs, silly jokes, make-believe, and snacks?

Or will I just fade away?

A wise friend told me something once...not to look @ life as a year long, or month long, or week long or even day-long experience, but to look at each moment, and not even preparing yourself to remember it, but just to be there.
Sure, take notes, mental and physical, remember things, video tape, take pictures, but don't rely on those things to be the entirety of your life experience.
The evidence of these things will be unseen, but known as you change and grow and become...
you.