My dear friend Kara and I set out yesterday to create a five minute video. Our goal was to tell a little bit about me and my book I plan to publish, CAN YOU UNDERSTAND ME? We did reach our goal…three hours later!!!

We decided to meet in Perrin Family Park, a beautiful park located in Jeffersonville, Indiana. We both thought it would be fairly quiet. We were quite wrong. Planes, park volunteers mowing the grass, runners running, and people talking, all decided to challenge us with our quest for a quiet spot with just that right amount of sunlight. We both kept our sense of humor, and we would just look at each other and laugh. But at times I would just shake my head as it seemed right before I had almost completed my spiel here comes another lawn mower around the corner, or suddenly the thud, thud, thud of a runner’s shoe hit the pavement right in front of us.

Some of the interruptions were special though. A dad strolled past us with his little girl in a stroller and his little boy running along the side of him. We stopped and waited, thinking they would keep moving down the path. But a few feet away from us there were metal posts of different sizes sticking out of the ground. The dad tried to teach the little boy how to stand on one post and balance his leg in the air. The little guy was having none of that. Instead he picked up a stick and began to hit the posts. Ping! Ping! Ping! Kara and I started looking around for another place to film. I looked back over to the family next to us and I was suddenly wishing I could video them! The father was balancing on one post with his arms stretched out wide, moving them up and down, up and down, and his son was mimicking him on the smaller post in total synchronicity, like a papa bird and baby bird getting ready to fly off together. Of course I did not turn the camera on them but I think the dad would have loved to have had a video of that time with his son. It was a precious moment.

A solitary red-tailed hawk flew over both us. As you know hawks are very special to me, but they are special to Kara also. Then a small plane flew low to the ground above us and that made us both smile. Kara’s dad used to fly small planes when he was alive here on earth. It seemed we really were not alone out in that field trying to film a video.

A portion of my book proposal to Hay House Publishing Company requires a video of myself and a short content of my book. That’s what prompted this morning activity out in a park. We were blessed with perfect weather. Yet I had no idea the challenges one meets when working with outdoor filming and camera shots. Writing has stretched me in many ways, but yesterday in the park really stretched me. I had my little presentation memorized which is all good. But I wanted to appear natural and authentic. Maybe all that life moving past us and around us helped me more than I know. It turned out the the first video we shot was the best, after all that walking around and trying “one more time”!

I was totally wired when I got home, my brain buzzing. I grabbed up Reddogg and we took a prayer walk. It came to me to open a few more windows in Our Treehouse and mow the yard. Doing something in my more regular routine helped me settle down. And when I came back into the house it smelled like fresh mowed grass. I love my home to smell like the outdoors. Then my thoughts went back to walking in the park and made me smile. It really had been a wonderful day, packed full. And…

Cut! That’s a wrap. Time to rest.

c   Love, Joan