Me and Mr. bookbabie went for a drive on Sunday afternoon. We went to the University of Michigan Botanical Gardens, a pumpkin filled landscape center, and to a lovely city park in Ann Arbor along the Huron River. The sun was warm, the sky watery-blue, and the air had that cool, crisp scent of autumn clinging to it that makes you want to dig out your favorite old sweatshirt and buy a jug of apple cider. We’ve been making an effort to, as they say, stop and smell the roses lately. To not only live in the moment, but to slow down, breathe deeply, and understand that the present moment is all we ever really have, we can’t change the past or control the unfolding future. It’s such a relief if you can do it, let it all go and stop living in your head, but of course it’s easier said than done. I think we all have something that can nudge us in the right direction though. For me and my husband it’s photography. When we’re out taking pictures our attention is on the world inside the viewfinder; the subject that has caught our eye, the way the light paints and colors the image in front of us. Maybe photography is really just our way of feeling like we actually do have a smidgen of control over life. We focus on one small square at a time, choosing the moments that we want to capture and hold on to.