Going beyond

Pictures speak to me.

They really do.   Often just gazing at a photograph prompts a blog post idea for me.   Catching a glimpse of something I’ve not noticed before also gives my imagination fodder.  I am a very visual person it seems.

That’s why I enjoy participating every so often in a Weekly Photo Challenge given by Word Press.  Each week in the Daily Post, a theme word photography challenge is offered to any bloggers wanting to participate.  

Our mission, should we decide to accept it, is to publish our photo attempts to personify that theme.

This week’s theme word is ‘beyond.’    Here’s the definition of beyond according to my trusty dictionary:  1. Farther away than; on the far side of.  2. After (a specified time). 3. Outside the limits, reach, or scope of.

Beyond.  That word makes my imagination soar…well…beyond and conjures up all kinds of ideas! Perusing  through my photo files, I  found several pictures that I thought fit this challenge.  The more I looked, the more I found, and that’s when I decided to incorporate the photo challenge into a written post, not just publish a picture.

One of my first thoughts when I read the word ‘beyond’ was musical –  songs with that word in them ran through my brain’s archives.  I’ve taken lots of pictures of sunsets from my own back yard.  So any of those shots could be used to symbolize the old hymn that comes to my mind, “Beyond the Sunset.”

Likewise, I have many shots of the Pacific Ocean coastline in Oregon in my stash of old photos.  So many of them portray the lyrics “somewhere beyond the sea” from the old song of the same name.

But I’m not just stuck on song lyrics.  The line made famous by Buzz Lightyear in the movie, Toy Story, “to infinity and beyond!” comes to my mind whenever I view some of the pictures I’ve taken of clouds.

And then there’s that saying about thinking outside the box or looking beyond the obvious.  I realized I needed to look beyond one day when I photographed a recent snow fall.  At first, I concentrated on the entire landscape around me, then I zoned in on how the snow clung to a tree limb.  When I focused on the snow draping the branches, I looked beyond and noticed pine trees sporting their snowy scarves, which provided a treasure trove of photos.

Of course, sometimes I can stretch a little too far — beyond my means.  A year ago, we were searching for oldest daughter’s wedding reception venue.  We visited a couple of places in our nearby city, but soon realized the sites, as beautiful as they were, were definitely beyond our means.  Here’s one of them.

I may have taken this photo challenge way beyond its intention, but our imaginations are like that or at least they should be.  They should soar beyond the everyday normal, even beyond our wildest expectations.  In 2012, way beyond my wildest expectations, all three of my adult children got married within six months of each other!  That was definitely going beyond the norm (at least for us)!

But I think the photo that best describes ‘beyond’ at this stage of my life is a picture that my middle daughter took of her dad and me one day.  We’re in the process of moving beyond. 

We’ve reached middle age and emptynesthood.  Our parents are gone.  Our children are grown and launched into their married lives.  Hubby and I have passed quite a few life stages; you might say we’ve moved beyond them.  We’ve been children, young adults, young marrieds, and parents of babies, children, teens, and now adults.  

A new stage of life is before us. Together, we walk hand and hand, just the two of us, to discover where this new stage takes us…into the future…into what lies beyond.

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