By Emily Hoffman
    The Wauneta Breeze
    
     One cold Sunday morning a few weeks ago I stood at the ocean's edge. I watched the sand flatten with each wave that broke on the shore. With each of us bundled in a coat, warm in hat and gloves, my grown daughters and I enjoyed the solitude of a beach in winter. No throngs of sun worshipers muddied our view of the ocean's majesty, or interrupted our conversations about life, about love, about the future.
     I purposely left my camera at home on this trip out of the state. Normally my camera is essential when I travel. I feel empty without it. It not only chronicles my journey, it acts as a buffer between me and a confusing world. I don't feel so alone with a camera at my side. I don't feel out of place, or different.
     As my college daughter, Ruth, and I rushed around in the pre-dawn hours to get to the airport on time, I paused by my camera case, resisted temptation, and got into the driver's seat of my car. This trip, I decided, I'd look at the world through both eyes, not through the lens of a camera.
     Without a camera I looked out to the ocean as far as I could see and found hope. I didn't have to frame a picture. Instead I discovered; I enjoyed. When the girls and I walked around New York City, through Central Park, I observed people we encountered: skaters, people asking for money, a homeless man, a family, children with balloons, and the man selling them.
     Strolling on Fifth Avenue I watched door men open and close spotless glass doors for opulently rich women and wondered at their lives. People so rich they don't even notice a door is being opened for them and the men who spend their entire life on the wrong side of that door.
     Without my camera I felt frenzy in the masses of people surrounding me in Times Square after the shows dismissed. At those times I was one of the mass, and to those surrounding me I was just another body.
     I pondered the life of the man selling hot dogs on the corner, and the woman hawking T-shirts by the harbor. The city looked different to me this trip, without a camera by my side.
     Besides saving my shoulder, leaving my camera at home urged my mind to remember that first hug from Aubry; the three of us in a back booth, enjoying our first meal together after a too-long absence in that noisy Irish pub; the conversation we had with the music teacher while standing in line for the 11 p.m. jazz show, the faces on the subway-full of hope, full of sorrow depending on where you looked.
     My next trip I'll most likely grab my camera. I find it challenging to take at least one picture that's remarkable, even if I have to snap 130 to get it. But this trip, not having photos to fall back on challenged me to gather these impressions close to me and brand them into my heart. The experience reminded me of how I want to go through life, with both eyes open.