As Others See Us

Over the last three months, my phone has blossomed with photos of wildflowers, rippled with corn fields and been dappled with shady woods.

Now that Lockdown is easing, we have begun to meet friends for socially distanced walks.  Afterwards we have swapped photos and it has been very welcome to see people reappearing in my photo folder.  It is as if a very beautiful garden of Eden is gradually being populated.  

I have also found myself delighted to see Nigel and I popping up again.  As somebody else’s photo arrives via WhatsApp I have an urge to cry out ‘Look! It’s me!’

In the past, a photo of oneself could be a trophy – ‘Look – Here are Nigel and I visiting the Eiffel Tower’. 

But right at the moment, these pictures of us are proof of something more valuable – we have begun to see friends and family again.

The poet, Robert Burns said:

"O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us!"

(‘If only some Power would give us the gift to see ourselves as others see us!’)

I’m pretty sure he did not foresee the mobile phone camera, and he probably wasn’t talking about physical appearance either.  But even so, it’s the phrase that went through my head when Carenza sent us some pics at the weekend.

It is good to be back in my own photo folder again.