I was at my computer, uploading some new photos I had taken of Red at the veterinary clinic, I was distracted and tired,I clicked on the wrong button on my photo storing and editing program, and a folder named Spring of 2017 disappeared for good.

There were four or five thousand photographs there, all from the the last six months when I began this folder, early in the winter of 2017, I wanted it to cover photos from then to summer. It is good, photographs I  loved, of Maria, the woods, the farm, the dogs, the Mansion, the refugee kids, portraits, shots of Kelly – truthfully, I don’t care to think about it.

Every photograph I take is a piece of my heart and soul. They are gone and not recoverable, sent out into the ether where they may live on in light and energy.

We all have stories like this, these very imperfect but miraculous machines are only as good as the people operating them, when all is said and done. It was my fault, not the computer’s. I wasn’t paying attention, and six or seven thousand photos, a priceless catalogue of my life, so much work and care, all gone.

I felt a flutter in my heart. I took a deep breath.

I like to say that everything is a gift, and you know what? It is. I like to say I am evolving and learning what it important in life. And you know what, I am?  I like to believe that I am moving closer towards a true spiritual life, which I have always sought.

And how interesting, the loss of my photos have convinced me that this may be true. Hard work and a willful mind can pay off.

After I realized what I had done, I stopped and got up and walked around my study. Okay, I said, I will not spend a single minute complaining about this, whining about it, seeking sympathy or beating myself up for making this silly error. Or looking back.

I know where the delete button is, I was just somewhere else in my head, I imagine with Red at that moment.

Life comes with suffering and loss, and the thing about photographs is you can always take a new one, every day. I already have. Lament is a poison that corrodes the spirit. I won’t join the victim brigades who populate social media. People suffer so much worse than that, every minute of every day.

This loss forces me to look ahead, not back, to think of the present and the future, not the past. It challenges me to be creative and take some new photographs that are good. I believe nostalgia is a trap, a mudhole it is easy fall into, hard to climb out of. The past is not always better than the future and my past is especially sadder than the present or, I hope, my future. It is cleansing and liberating to let go.

Perhaps I ought to delete all of the 40,000 photos sitting in hard drives that will never be seen. They are a weight on me.

The world around me is embracing complaint and recrimination, whining and lament. I want to go the other way.

Maria came into the house and I turned to her and said that I just deleted the last six months of my photographs, not all of them but most of them, some of my best pictures.”

“Oh, God,” she said, “that is awful!”

But you know what?, I answered. It wasn’t really that awful. I take photos every day, and I never like to look backwards in my life, or in my photographs. They are about now, about the moment. I will just start taking some new ones, and I went outside and took some photos of the pasture, the barns, the cats and Red.

I surprised myself a bit, not only because i said that, but because I felt it. For so much of my life, I would have yowled and whined and seethed about something like that, but yesterday I didn’t even feel that. I am not yet where I wish to be as a human being, but those photos make me feel that I am on the way. I am hopeful.

I already have 75 photos in my new “Spring 2017.” Life is so short, every day is precious. Every day is a choice for me, how do I wish to live today? What do I wish to accomplished? How can I do some good in a world awash in anxiety and anger?

Yesterday, I made a good choice, a choice I am proud of. I will not spend a single one of those days in complaint and self-pity. Life is much too good for that. Wherever they are, I wish my photos well, and I hope many of you used them. They were and are free, and I hope they bring you pleasure and peace and compassion.