PHOTO-A-DAY CHALLENGE
Raindrops and Haziness
Week 55 of the photographic documentary of my daily life
This week began with a very emotional and heart-breaking event. It was my grandma’s funeral. The final goodbye and celebration of a fulfilled life of an incredibly inspiring person.
I love the idea of celebrating someone’s life at a funeral much more than crying for one’s passing. I’ve first gotten in contact with it in Ghana when my host father invited me to the five-day-long funeral celebration of a chief from a neighboring village. I told him I had nothing black to wear and he instructed me to please put on the most colorful dress I owned. Which was much easier for me anyway.
And then there I was. In the middle of a funeral party of hundreds of people dancing, singing, and celebrating the life of the deceased. I enjoyed it a lot. It brought a different light to funerals for me.
I no longer feel forced to wear a depressing black suit for any funeral and try to look at the event as a celebration of this person’s life.
Not saying it wasn’t a sad day. My look was just as blurry as this photo. I had endless tears running down my cheeks. I wrote about the passing of my grandma before and mentioned her health problems and how we cooped with it for weeks in my posts.
But it didn’t make it easier. The grieving. The crying. The tears about all the moments I shared with her. But in the end, we need to remember that she has lived a great life as an inspiring person.
Well, and because my life is full of extremes I was back in the air the next day. Here again on a camera jump during the late afternoon capturing the very moment this tandem instructor opened the parachute.
When I got up today, morning haze was covering the airfield. It was such a tranquil atmosphere. Before all the busyness of the day would take over this place.
I still haven't seen the rabbits living at the airport again and start wondering if they are still alive.
I was looking for sunshine on a rainy day when I found this shining beauty. It should be more like looking for summer in a rain-filled season. But as you know me I am trying to find beauty in every day and every weather.
And the rain is great. Maybe not for me when I am trying to work and jump out of a plane but much more for nature!
Monday, our first day of the weekend (usually we don’t work on Mondays and Tuesdays). We decided to grab some takeaway food and sit down by the river for lunch. The sky was rather cloudy but it didn’t rain.
Tuesday was time for our paddle session again. The sky looked like it could rain but I really wanted to go on the water and cloudy skies are actually better than the scorching sun when doing exercise in the outdoors.
On my last paddle session, I wrote about the lone swan looking for friends on the river. I didn’t expect to see him again but surely hoped for. And just as we were about to dock in front of the beer garden, we saw him. Swimming among a crowd of Egyptian geese and some local ducks.
I’m glad to see he did find some friends after all. Friends who were more reliable than us who only come to the river about once a week.
Wednesday meant back to work again. First, about a four-hour’s drive to my workplace, and then I jumped 5 times out of a plane. One lady I jumped with was from India and she had such a blast. She screamed the entire time and laughed a lot under the canopy. That’s when I know why I’m doing this job. To make people happy!
This has been my week in photographs. 7 days. 7 photographs. Anyone can join. Once. Or weekly. It doesn’t matter. We welcome everyone! Dennett was the one starting this photography challenge sometime last year and many have participated ever since.
Erika Burkhalter / Eileen Vorbach Collins / Sasha Meyer / Tracy Aston/ Lisa Bolin / Juan O. Aguilera / David Wade Chambers / Mia Verita / Susan Alison / LensAfield / Barbara Radisavljevic / Diana Lotti / Barbara Dalton / Kim Zuch / Sandra Barrett / Shruthi Sundaram and new to the team came Ellie Jacobson with “A Week in Transition”.
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