How To Be An Explorer of the World

When was the last time you were an explorer?  Perhaps on a vacation?  Maybe it was moving on to a new town or a new job or a new relationship.  I have always loved change.  I know most people feel discomforted by it but I love it.  Deep inside of me is an explorer longing for "new".  Sometimes that new can be as simple as changing my perspective but sometimes it requires something bigger. 

It is the time of year that I like the least.  The skies are a constant shade of grey, the ground a muddy mix of browns.  The landscape is bare, trees have shed all but the one or two leaves that simply refuse to drop.  Friends on Facebook are posting their pictures from the far-away sunny places they have gone to escape the dreariness.

It seems a perfect time to spice my life up with a little bit of "new".  Now, I wish I could take credit for the project I am about to undertake, but I can't.  A few years ago one of my daughters requested a book on her Christmas list (she's a crazy, voracious reader).  When I found it in that lovely little bookstore in Fort Langley, Wendel's, I was surprised on so many fronts. This wasn't a book you 'read', it was a book you 'experienced'.  This book was definitely not one I would have ever picked out for this daughter.  This book was certainly going to challenge her comfort zone.  I couldn't wait to see her embark on the journey this book was about to take her on.  As I browsed through other books by the same author I found one that I believed would take me on my own journey.  I have owned the book for a couple of years now and every now and then I take it off the shelf and  browse through it.  Parts of it are daunting, parts intriguing and some parts just look plain old-fashioned fun.  I'm not sure why I didn't delve into it right off the bat but I do believe the time is ripe for me to take it on.

Keri Smith has a LOT of books that make me curious but this is the one I chose and this is the one I am going to start with. The project that I am going to start with is Exploration #41 - Found Faces (there are 59 Explorations in this book).  I am going to haul my camera around with me for one week starting today and I am going to capture every "face" that I see. The only catch is that the faces cannot be attached to people, they must be "naturally-occurring"!   This challenge will make me look past the "dreary" into the details of the world around me.  It will infuse me with curiosity and will refocus me, which is just what I need right now.  Can't wait to share the pics of what I "see" this week.

 

Some other books by Keri Smith:

Finish this Book,  Wreck this Journal, Living Out Loud - Activities to Fuel a Creative Life, The Guerilla Art Kit, Mess: The Manual of Accidents and Mistakes, The Non-Planner Date Book, Boyology: A Teen Girl's Crash Course on All Things Boy.

 

 

This is a pic of Wendel's book store in Fort Langley, B.C.  If you haven't been there, it's a must see but make sure to take your wallet.  Wendel's also has a lovely little cafe where the soup is divine and the sandwiches are real.