Small Wonders

Dinner

Dinner

 That evening at dinner I had decided I would go to the beach the next day. The weather was supposed to be nice, and although I wasn’t one for swimming, the area was great for photography. I had received a good camera from my father the Christmas before he left my mother. Then last summer, he gave me a new set of lenses as “I’m sorry I’m leaving and tearing our family apart” gift of sorts.   I usually went in the mornings or the evenings to capture the beauty of the ocean minus the obnoxious tourists.

  “Hey Mom, I’m going to the beach tomorrow, Okay?”

“That’s fine, why don’t you take Olivia with you?”

 Olivia had been my best friend going into high school, we did everything together. But when we got to Pearle Grove High, she sort of distanced herself from me. She began hanging out with the “popular” group she could not stand in middle school. I sort of stood on the fringe, doing pretty much whatever they did, and prayed that they would still let me sit at their table next year.

“I’m going early Mom. Olivia wouldn’t want to come.”

“Are you going to be doing more of your photography?”

“Yes.” My mother seemed to think that my love for photography was a sort of a problem. She seemed to believe that I should be doing something like worrying about hair and boys, or being an athlete and trying out for softball or tennis or an activity of that nature.

“Well, I’ll get you up on my way to work” She said and then continued to stab sweet and sour chicken with her fork.

    My mother and I did not have much in common. She worked at the First National Bank, and was perfectly content with living her life the same way every day. I, on the other hand, sensed that my life was missing something, therefore I filled it with hiding my photography love from my friends and going to the bigger town of West Shores on the weekends.