The Potential of Me

By Renee Shay, Harvesting Thought

-explore–

Less than two months ago I wrote a blog called “Selling Short” to explore my thoughts about a job transfer opportunity for which I had applied.  Here I am now, hard to believe, one week into working that new job.  I have moved to the San Francisco Bay area, an area where I have not lived for 29 years.  I could not be happier about the decision I have made.  I initially had many self-doubts about whether I was making the right decision while minimizing the potential of me just in case the powers at be did not accept my transfer.  As I began my preparation for what might be, as I received news that they accepted my transfer, all those doubts started to fade away and turned to excitement about what was possible.

–challenge–

Part of my challenge about whether I was making the right decision or not about the move came from a photo I had hanging in my living room at the time.  It was of a stranger, with his back toward the camera, peering out toward the Pacific Ocean.  I had taken that contemplative photo my last trip out to the bay area, while at Hi Pigeon Point Lighthouse Hostel in Pescadero, California.  The stranger was wearing a hooded red sweatshirt and the photo had stuck out to me enough because it was out of focus, like stain glass, so I chose it to frame and hang on the wall in my house.  See “Selling Short” blog for more on that. 

One of my first stops during my first week of living back in the bay area was to return to that lighthouse, a coming home of sorts.  I took a lot of photos.  When I returned home and began reviewing my photos to see what the best ones were, I discovered that one of them captured somethings I did not see at the time I took it.  I zoomed in and could not believe it.  There was a sea gull, cool.  But, the surprise, a person in a red sweatshirt, this time, with a ball cap on and the hood over it.  He or she, was peering out toward the sea!  They were not standing near the fence; they were down on the rocks far enough away where I did not even notice them when I was taking the photos. 

–expand–

Is it a worker, is it someone who lives in the youth hostel, I do not know?  Is it the same person, do not know?  What I do know is there is a message for me in these experiences.  As with photography, opening the aperture farther and farther, you can start to see more of the landscape in front of you.  When there is darkness, your vision is limited but when the sun comes up, you can begin to see right?  Is that what is happening here for me?  The lighthouse is symbolic, got it, but now I have this stranger who at first appeared in my photo as out of focus, but interesting enough to hang on my wall in my home for the better part of two years?  Now, I return to that same place as it is drawing inspiration for me and take another photo without knowing I snapped it of another one in a red sweatshirt? 

I have a feeling this lighthouse is going to become a place of continued inspiration and I must continue to expand my knowledge of that stranger.  On my next visit, I will be showing my photos to see if anyone knows of them.  I now want to meet this person and discover their story.  I have no doubt that when I do, they will understand how something as odd as a stranger in a photo can bring such inspiration to a person and that just might change the trajectory of their entire life.  Anyone who stands in front of the mighty ocean with their back toward the noise of the world behind them has a story to tell.