This weekend I woke up with a burst of energy to create! It was early Saturday morning when I had the idea to go to the NY Botanical Gardens to create some photographs as part of my Finding Beauty in the Dead of Winter project. Trouble is – I don’t have a car anymore!! Fortunately, even though it was early, I was able to convince my husband to give me a ride. He asked how I’d get home and I said I’d just figure it out later – the only thing on my mind was to create!!!
I’m intentionally going to gardens for this project because you would think in Winter there would be nothing to see. That’s the challenge of it!! Especially this weekend when temps were in the 20’s.
Even though I was bundled up, I’ll admit, it was freezing!! Everything was ok except for my hands. It was a little challenging pressing the shutter with gloves on so I switched between having them off and on. After an hour I was done but I was happy with what I captured.
I walked around the grounds and because I was looking for beauty, I found it. Take a look…
This last set are my favorites…
Now I had to figure out how to get home. My back was already bothering me from carrying my heavy camera in my backpack and I was freezing. The Botanical Gardens is on the other side of the Bronx from where I live. It takes about 10-12 minutes on the highway to drive. The easy thing to do would have been to call an Uber. but I decided to challenge myself and WALK home!! I got as excited about this as I was to photograph!
Since I was walking I knew I had to take local streets so I had an idea of my route. To make it doable I broke it down in my head to have 6 checkpoints. As I was walking I focused on the checkpoint, not my home. Each time I made it to a checkpoint, it was like a little win and it made me keep going.
After an hour and 20 minutes of walking, I made it home! I was so excited and felt like I had 2 wins under my belt for the day. I got up early to create, and I walked further than I thought I could. It ended up being about 4 1/2 miles. This may seem like nothing to you if you’re really into fitness but for me this was HUGE!! It made me think – if I can do this, what else can I do?!? I challenge you to look for ways in your own life where you may be holding back and where you can push yourself to give it a little more.
You can also see other images in my Finding Beauty in the Dead of Winter project in these posts from Untermyer Gardens and Wave Hill.
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