i recently wrote about the picture i thought was the most joyful ever. in that discussion i shared that my image of choice was part of a daily ritual i have but i didn't discuss it further. i have a ten minute walking commute to and from work. while it is great to have your home be that close and convenient to travel to, it carries the odd burden of being, in some ways, too close. by this i mean that switching gears from a quiet office built around concentration to a home seemingly based on chaos can be a hard change to make for a man of my years and quiet disposition. so, every day the last thing i do before pushing back from my desk is pull the mentioned photo up. i find it helps remind me how fortunate i am to, at all times, be a mere ten minute walk from my people. in researching the photo for the post i found i could purchase a print of it which i did without pause.

shortly after installing it in my home office i found bella (13) standing before it. i walked up to stand beside her where we both looked at the image. after sensing me beside her she complimented the new addition. i agreed and said it was one of my favorites of all time. i asked her what she thought was happening in the scene. she said she thought the man was coming home from war and his family was happy to see him. i told her she was close but that the war had ended five years earlier and he had been held for those five years in a prisoner of war camp and he and his family probably thought they'd never see each other again. i then added that the girl about to hug him probably hadn't seen him since she was about bella's age. i asked if she, bella, could imagine she and i not getting to see each other or write or talk for the next five years. bella turned into me and gave me a deep hug, her head nestled into my shoulder for a long, silent embrace. when she pulled back she looked away, bashful of the tears that had come. i told her the image had a similar effect on me. i told her how i've been looking at it for some months/years now to remind me how fortunate i am to get to spend every day with my family and i hope to never take a single one of those days for granted.

because of the sway this simple image holds over me is why i awarded it this prominent spot in the one room on this planet (and pixel of this universe) that is all mine to do with as i see best.