The quiet moves in on soft kitten feet as I close and lock the door and watch the taillights fade away. My daughter and husband are on their way to school and to work, and I am left alone to complete my household chores, in quiet.

Oh, how my soul rejoices and soaks in the sounds of solitude. Soft, downy pillows surround my heart when I have a few moments with the house to myself. I can be me with no pressure to be someone I am not.  I love my family fiercely but find angst in my heart because I know I am not always the person they wish I could be: the fearless world traveler. Their love of travel confounds me.  Perhaps one day I will share it, but for now my overly sensitive soul cringes at the mere thought of traveling anywhere…

Because today I am soaking in the silence. Traveling is a noisy endeavor.  Airplane noise, constant chattering in the background, the “dinging” sounds requesting help from flight attendants.

I find that the older I get, the more of an introvert I become.

These few moments of alone time serve as batteries for my soul.  When I am around my family or other people for a long stretch of time without having any alone time, I find myself slipping into a mental time-out.  This tendency comes out when I go on a photo shoot.  I have whole conversations going on inside my head as I tilt my head this way and that way trying to come up with interesting angles and lines and then check the metering in the camera to get the exposure just right.  I look at shadows and sunlight and reflections.  With all that going on inside my head, it is difficult to notice anything else!

Speaking of photo shoots, my photography class took a field trip this week.  I found that I actually enjoyed getting photos of architecture, especially once we moved from inside the hotel to the streets outside. I always thought buildings would be boring…I thought my focus as a photographer would be in taking nature and people shots.  Little did I know how fun it could be to snap photos of buildings.  They don’t move, or blink their eyes, or turn away.  I found them to be very patient with me, and they let me take as many photos as I wanted without resorting to eye rolling and foot stomping, and they never once asked, “Are you done yet?”

Here are some of my favorite shots.

I like the colors of the reflection in the glass on this one as well as the iron work.  This is just a piece of a set of double doors to one of the shops. Maybe I’ll go back when the stores are open to find out what lurks behind door number one!

This fan is one of my favorite shots from the day.  Fans have a quieting effect on me.  In fact, I have one blowing on me as I write this blog today.  This fan wasn’t turned on, but the wind made the blade rotate, and the camera caught the blur.  I like the way the logo shows up highly focused.  Shutter speed was 1/10 of a second.

This image was taken near the end of our photo walk.  The sun was almost directly overhead, so the image looks a bit harsh. But I like the shape of the water as well as the foam.  The shutter speed was 1/640 of a second.

This was another photo taken near the end of our photo excursion.  I wanted to capture the line of the lamps with the people walking in the background. Most of them are from my photography class.

I’ve also worked on a few more portraits this week.  It is very difficult to judge a photo of myself because instead of looking for composition elements, I’m looking at wrinkles, red lines in my eyeballs, and makeup lines!

I loved getting this shot of my daughter.  I noticed the sun shining at the perfect angle to backlight her hair.  My daughter is beautiful.  You heard it here, first!

All this blogging in the quiet has put me in the mood to listen for God’s still, small voice.  So now that I am completely alone, surrounded by kitten feet of soft silence, I’ll read my Bible…..and listen.