Monday, February 21, 2011

Better Later Than Never

It was a friend's comment on Face-
book that had me open to the photograph to begin with.

"Wow! GREAT shot!" she had written under the very spectacular scene, and I completely agreed. But I didn't know why she was complimenting me, and I felt a bit envious of the fortunate person who did get to take the shot. Given the image was so magical, bordering on the improbable, I half wondered if it had been Photoshopped, collaged from several images. Alongside of all that, I was puzzling over how her comment had reached me. I just couldn't figure it out...and then I saw it.

"So amazing," I wrote back to her. "I didn't recognize it at first ... I saw a "fairy land," as if I were looking into another dimension. It was an odd feeling of disconnect ("She's commenting on a picture of mine, but it's not mine, whose is it...?" etc. etc. ). But then I remembered the place and the moment and it cleared... [T]hanks to you I saw something I've never seen in this photo--something truly extraordinary..."

The photo was indeed mine. It was I who'd stood on this very spot near Connor Pass on the Dingle Peninsula of Ireland two springs ago and took this shot while bracing against a bitter wind. Back in Dublin, on May 6, I posted it as part of a sampling of the hundreds of photos I'd brought back from the trip. On February 6, almost 2 years later, a Facebook comment led me back to it--and gifted me in the process.

Not recognizing the shot as my own--convinced in fact that it wasn't my own--I could see it newly. Then with recognition came realization that it was I who was the fortunate one in that magnificent place. I had been given the gift of a second chance to enter fully all the magic and potential of that original moment. And I took it.

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