It is difficult to get back into work. I feel as if I am a stone that is being skipped across waters and has yet to submerge into the lake of technical tasks.
I have come back for two days then three days, with weekends and unexpected days off between. Now, I will work tomorrow and then there will be two days off to go to LA and help Rachel come home, then a three day Labor Day weekend, so five days off again starting tomorrow evening. It is unfortunate that the cause for these extra days off is not celebratory, though time is needed to accept something like death, also. It is not good to try to process the grief of death and have work stress also competing for your intellectual and emotional resources.
Time away is good, though late yesterday afternoon I went to the pub and sat for twice as long as I perhaps should have. Two beers turned into four. I was lucky to have stopped there, though I feel guilty when beer causes me to skip a day riding. My yin and yang can get a little pushy.
I brought my Fuji with a portrait lens over to the neighbor's house yesterday, to take some snapshots of their kids playing. There were a couple pics that I really liked, just little snapshots of kids.
What a great age to be.
I like shooting pictures of kids. The happiness on their faces seems so uncomplicated, so easy to come by, so always of the moment.
Perhaps being a parent has made me a simpleton, but I like being around kids. They can be demanding at times - Rhys would not stop trying to crawl onto my back in the pool on Sunday, leading to yesterday's saving grace of a picture of it - but the rewards in giggling and laughing seem to be pretty well worth it. I'll let you know if the ratios seem to start tilting in the other direction.
I think I could go back and be a kid again. I would be prince of the apple towns...
.
