The joy of raindropsCOFFEE WITH WARREN, with Warren Harbeck |
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Weather on your mind? I’d like to revisit our June 23, 2022, column about what one of our Stoney Nakoda readers experiences in raindrops. FROM GREY SKIES and downpours to the joy of raindrops – that’s this week’s story from our Morley coffee companion Deanna Two Young Men. “Raindrops, grey days, how do I explain thee,” Deanna ponders. “I just know that, as gifts from Mother Earth, they make beautiful photos.” Indeed, the recent downpours have provided Deanna a golden opportunity to rise above sadness and grief. Take the bejewelled dandelion in the centre of the accompanying collage of her raindrop photos, for example. It was in its dying days. “When I saw it, it spoke like it was saying ‘Look at me!’ Even though the rain was crazy at times, I still managed to discover beauty and comfort in something at first so somber-looking.” This reminds me of the mystical relationship Deanna seems to have with Nature. I first became aware of it in a photo of a crocus she took a year ago (upper left in the collage). She encountered the tearful crocus the same evening that my nature-loving friend David Lertzman died. In fact, all her raindrop photos in this collage speak to the comfort in grief she has experienced while taking their pictures. “I don’t talk about it much, as it brings me back to those moments when time stood still and I felt numb upon hearing about losing beloved family members,” she says. “Within these last few years, I have lost family who I thought would grow old with me. When after all the services were done, then came the rollercoaster emotions of grief. After some time went by, I thought to myself that I needed to do something about my grief. “I just went out and started doing what I like to call ‘grief photography.’ I had become interested in taking photos of anything I had seen looking sad or lonely, and making them look beautiful once again.” Yes, and herein lies the joy of raindrops that brings comfort in grief. Thank you, Deanna.
© 2024 Warren Harbeck |