On Broken Cameras & Grace

There are weeks lately when I am really tired.

Some days, the job that I loves takes a little too much out of me. Some days, I just do not want to open my eyes when that alarm rings. Some days, I do not want to make one more decision about what to make for dinner.

It sounds ridiculous, but life can be exhausting.

And then you accidentally barely nudge your tripod at work and this happens.

Luckily, I could see it was only the filter, but I got it home and couldn’t even pry the filter off the front of the lens. I asked Scott to try and even with pliers it would not budge. And of course it would happen the week I have two shoots lined up over the weekend for the first time in months. Of course.

I still cannot believe I didn’t cry. I just went to bed. That seems to be a good answer for emotional exhaustion these days.

And then it’s Wednesday and you’ve already worked 38 hours this week and you think you’re going to head out a little early to go get your camera fixed just because you can and a coworker walks into your office at 4:30 PM because a client needs something you’ve never heard about before now and of course they need it now and you are the only person in your department at the end of the day.

You leave work a little late and shuffle your tired self and your broken camera to the camera store, bracing the whole drive for Bad News. What if the lens mount is damaged? What if it did crack the most expensive lens you own? What if…?

And then Grace.

The camera fixin’ man, he looked at my broken baby and took it confidently in hand.

“No problem. I can take care of this,” he says. He disappears into the back of the store, and I turn to busy myself with looking at tripods, thinking I might be here for a bit.

Three minutes. That’s about how long it took before he reappeared, my freed, perfectly-in-tact lens in one hand, and the broken, distorted outer ring of the busted filter in the other.

“Souvenir?” he asks, holding out what was left of the filter, fragments of plastic in a broken O.

“No thanks,” I reply. “No souvenirs necessary.” I smile, thinking of how I’ve already taken a photo of the damage. I’m standing in a camera store after all – it seems only right.

After confirming that I want a replacement, he grabs me a new filter off the wall, proceeds to put it on the camera straightaway. “I cleaned it good – might as well get a filter on.” A fixed and clean lens? Yes. Put that filter on there as soon as possible!

I thank him, I wonder the store – discuss tripods and lens rentals and camera bags with another employee. She’s helpful and passionate and you can tell she loves photography. I have the same shoes she is wearing at home. We could probably be friends.

At the end of my visit, she asks if I have any more questions. “I just need to pay for the filter and the repair,” I answer, heading back toward the counter where the empty filter case sits.

“What repair did we do?” she asks her manager, the man who pried loose the un-looseable filter.

“No charge,” he says. “We do these for fun.” He grins.

Grace is this.

The moment your heart returns to its normal size, swelling away from dread.

The moment you can pause and take a deep breath again after a day of struggling to slow down.

The moment you can look a the sunset on the commute home and smile because it is just so beautiful.

This is grace.

Where have you found grace this week? I’d love to hear your story.