mossy wonderlands

i know with the states in the throes of an extreme cold snap, it seems a little out of place to complain about mild temperatures (our forecast high for tomorrow is 10°C/50°F) , but i really think we could use a bit of winter. however, yesterday afternoon, when i went down to the forest to help husband load up a bunch of firewood he'd been working on, i was happy to have my camera along and happy the landscape wasn't covered in snow, because it meant these amazing little mossy wonderlands were there to see if you were willing to get down on the ground with your macro lens. i find them to be such impossibly magical little architectural constructions, it seems strange that they are plants. i do often wonder if i've just scared away the fairies or perhaps a pixie or two, but i never seem to catch sight of any, to my eternal disappointment.

bad genes are good for something

i was just scrolling through the 33,477 photos i have in iPhoto on my iMac (thank goodness for that terabyte of time capsule backup), looking for a particular event (if you don't have iPhoto, an event is the way iPhoto organizes your pictures, so it's kind of a folder in windows terms). and i kept getting lost along the way, stopping to click into other events that had nothing to do with what i was looking for. and i realized there are a lot of folders that i've called "macro" something or other.

because in case you hadn't noticed, i'm a bit of a fan of my 60mm nikkor macro lens. and with the ability to focus exactly where i want to on the D300, i spend a lot of time with that lens. and me being me, i couldn't resist thinking about why that is. because otherwise in life, i'm not known for my attention to detail (a solid meyers-briggs ENTP). i'm a big picture kind of person. so what is it about the view that the macro lens affords that i find so fascinating?

and then it hit me. the macro lens sees in a very similar manner to my own eye (hmm, i guess i wasn't done with that whole eye thing after all). i'm really near-sighted. like one diopter from a dog. my glasses are -7 in my left eye and -6.5 with the right. there are places where -8 is legally blind. but of course, i can correct my vision with contacts and glasses and i do so. but without correction, my own eyes work a lot like the macro lens. there is a point of objects that are very close that's in perfect, sharp focus along a line and it fades quickly along the edges and in the background. i have little depth to my vision and without glasses can only see something that's held very close to my eyes.

so i've come to the conclusion that my eye feels at home with the macro lens. and i have to admit that getting down into the details of things, noticing and really studying something up close, through that lens, has helped me to be more mindful in general. i notice my surroundings more, including the small details that used to escape me. i guess i can thank my bad eyes and my 60mm macro. maybe i'll have to stop trying to get my parents to pay for my glasses, arguing that it was the fault of the bad genes they gave me. it seems bad genes are good for something after all.

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on another note: you should go and check out SE'LAH's beautiful "gift of jewels" project. it's a beautiful idea and it involves getting a lovely card in the mail from a wonderful blogger somewhere out there in the world. kind of like postcrossing, but more personal. it's in celebration of the ethiopian new year, but also in celebration of the community found here in the blogosphere.  here's a list of who is participating already, but you can still play too! just scoot on over to this post on the necessary room and sign up by friday!

can't put down this book

gratuitous lily shot taken in my garden yesterday.

it doesn't really have anything to do with what i've written below.

i'm reading american wife by curtis sittenfeld. and i am absolutely loving it. so until it's done, i find myself wanting to read and not write. and it's a little bit weird because the book admits it's inspired by laura bush and i'd never have imagined i'd love reading something in which characters scream dubya, karl rove and the evil wench barbara bush. but it's really, really good. i can't put it down. so now, i'm going back to it. don't worry. i'm a fast reader, so i'll be back soon.