My camera goes almost everywhere with me. If you see me in public, chances are you will also see a Canon EOS Rebel T5 hanging around my neck.
I think to a certain extent, we all enjoy pictures. Many people may not want to be in them, but I feel that when most people see a picture, they will have some kind of reaction to it. It might bring back good memories. It might bring back bad memories. It might bring joy or it could bring pain. You could see a picture of a family member and be filled with pride. You may see a picture of a loved one who has passed from this life and it moves you to tears. Maybe you see a picture of nature and its beauty is beyond comprehension in your mind.
Personally, I can’t even recall how many times I would pull out the family photo albums from the cabinet in our coffee table. Revisiting old family reunions, birthdays, important life events and so much more has always been something I enjoyed. I never really had a camera of my own growing up, but it seemed that mom always had hers wherever we were to make sure and document all the moments we would want to remember.
I first started enjoying photography when I was in college at Colby. I did a little bit of digital photography for the high school newspaper my senior year, but those first digital models did not zoom the greatest and still required the use of a floppy disk. Writing for the newspaper at CCC usually meant getting your own pictures if you wanted to have them for your stories. I got to use a pretty high-end 35mm camera, but they still had to be printed. Fortunately, 1-hour photo had come along by then.
After years of having average at best personal digital cameras, I finally invested in a DSLR camera. (I’m not going to bore you with the technical meaning of that, so let’s just call it a “fancy” camera.) As people who follow my social media can probably see, photography has become a great passion of mine ever since.
I enjoy shooting sporting events, family outings, animals, nature and anything else I feel would make an interesting subject that others might like seeing. Typically, I don’t consider myself an interesting subject. I’ve started taking a few more phone “selfies” lately to document places I go since I’m a single guy that is usually by myself in said places. I think I’ve spent most of my life not really being into self-promotion, so maybe that’s why most of the pictures I’m in on my “fancy” camera, I’m rarely alone.
On Saturday afternoon, I went to Pillsbury Crossing just to the southeast of Manhattan. It’s a place I’ve wanted to go for a little while and finally took the time to do it. When I got out of my car and walked across the water, I realized I had left my phone in the car. How was I supposed to get a selfie with the breathtaking view? I decided to set up the Canon on a rock and take advantage of the timer feature. The image that was produced really made me think of what my life has been like over the past six years or so and how I got to where I was on Saturday.
One image. Full of weakness.
I was a fall risk. Most people know that I have a rare autoimmune muscle disease known as dermatomyositis. If you don’t know the full story, you can find it on this blog by looking back at my posts from August of 2015. To break it down into simple terms, I was so weak I couldn’t stand up on my own from low surfaces. I couldn’t push myself up from virtually anywhere.
I “lived” at Salina Regional Health Center for nearly two months. When I began doing physical therapy on the rehab floor at SRHC, any high movement activities I did typically needed at least two therapists to be with me. I was tagged with a “Fall Risk” bracelet when I showed up. The one good thing about my situation at the time was once I got up, I could still walk. One day, though, I got a little cocky. My PT (who was also my high school classmate, Amber) had been giving me some recommendations about how to help my gait a little bit and told me that I would eventually need to start leaning forward more when I walked. A couple of days later, I decided to put it to the test with her holding me up by my gait belt. I took a stumble. I was a fall risk.
One image. Full of constraints.
Things we do in everyday life were not easy. I couldn’t lift my arms above my shoulders. I couldn’t put my clothes on without either human help or the assistance of special apparatuses. I didn’t even dream of having enough leg strength to climb stairs.
One image. Full of hardships.
If you’ve read my previous blog, you know that I started experiencing my weakness around October of 2014. I was co-dependent from late November of 2014 until March 1, 2015 when I was finally fully independent again. It took a lot of help from doctors, nurses, aides, therapists (both physical and occupational), workouts and without a doubt so many prayer warriors for me to get my independence back.
One image. Full of grace.
His grace is absolutely sufficient. I’ve always felt God has never put me in a position I cannot handle. By His grace, I understood what I needed to do to get back to my independence. To get back to my everyday life with my family, friends and everything else that entailed.
One image. Full of strength.
I was a fall risk. Look at that image again. I’ve told you in this story that I couldn’t stand up on my own from virtually any surface. Climbing stairs was impossible. As much as I told myself I had the leg strength to do it, my brain and my body basically laughed at me. I’m not imagining that what you see in this image is some feat of superhuman strength. However, I was able to walk and climb through some rocks, crouch on a rock and set up my camera on another rock at the same time. I was alone with nature. They were things I don’t even think twice about anymore as I’m doing them, but seeing myself from the other side made me realize the strength it has taken to get here. The only “fall risk” I had in the moment was that my non-cheap camera could fall off the rock and break.
One image. Full of power.
As I look at the image now, I see that I’ve been given back the power to be able to do these things again. I know ultimately that power comes from above, but my internal power comes from wanting to live a full life. We all go through challenges, but what happens when we come out on the other side? I hope you can all take your power back and live the life you want. Do I still have restrictions of how far I can push myself? Absolutely. Will I let my disease and circumstances keep me from living? Absolutely not.
One image. Full of life.
(As you read this, you can probably see that I still enjoy writing and expressing around 2 Corinthians 12:9-10. The full verse is on the top right of my blog.)
dusty40 