Quietly thrilling

Julia ♦ May 26, 2023 ♦ 4 Comments

The flower seed companies created beauty as well as jobs. Lompoc, California, 1992

“It is always quietly thrilling to find yourself looking at a world you know well but have never seen from such an angle before.” ― Bill Bryson

When I read these words from Bryson, I realized why I love photography so much.  Through the lens of my camera, I look at things from all sorts of angles, and see what I otherwise might have missed.  And he’s right, it is a quiet kind of thrill, but a thrill no less.  It inspires wonder and gratitude.  It wakes the mind up.

The great thing about photography is that you can experience that quiet thrill again years later when you look through old pictures you haven’t seen in awhile.  That’s how I felt recently when I saw the photo posted here.  I know, of course, that my memories of our time on the central coast of California are among my happiest; that our years there had a magical quality about them.  But I had forgotten the almost unreal beauty of those gorgeous flower fields, until I saw this photo again while I was putting together Jeff’s retirement scrapbook.

Wherever you are right now, whatever you’re doing, I hope you’ll make the time to experience as many quietly thrilling moments as you can.  The loud thrills may get all the press coverage, but it’s the quiet ones that add up to a lifetime of happiness.

This post was first published seven years ago today. The original post, comments and photo are linked, along with two other related posts, below. These links to related posts, and their thumbnail photos, do not appear in the blog feed; they are only visible when viewing the individual posts by clicking on each one. I have no idea why, nor do I know how they choose the related posts. That’s just the way WordPress does things.