There’s something about old, forgotten things that feels a little different in October.
A garden pot. A few fallen leaves. Cobwebs stretched across an opening. Weeds growing wherever they please.
Nothing particularly frightening. Nothing that should make you pause.
And yet…
I found myself looking at this little corner and wondering how long it had been sitting there, collecting dust, catching leaves, and quietly becoming part of the background.
How many times had someone walked past it without noticing?
How many seasons had come and gone while it sat there?
And why does that dark opening look like it might be hiding something? 😂☠️
Maybe that’s the fun of looking closer. Sometimes you discover beauty in the things everyone else overlooks. Sometimes you find a little bit of decay, a tangle of cobwebs, and something that looks like it belongs in the opening scene of a Halloween movie.
And sometimes, the ordinary is just a little more unsettling when you give it your attention.
Not everything creepy has to be a haunted house, a shadowy figure, or something moving when it absolutely should not be moving.
Sometimes, it’s just a forgotten corner.
And the question of what might be hiding inside.
🖤
Until next time,
-Destiny
P.s.- What ordinary thing gives you an unexpectedly creepy feeling when you stop and really look at it?
At first glance, there isn’t much happening in this photograph.
An empty set of bleachers. A fence surrounding a ballfield. Trees silhouetted against the fading light.
Nothing particularly exciting.
But look a little closer.
There’s a red ball sitting in the grass, just outside the fence.
It’s such a small detail that you could easily miss it. I almost wonder how many people would look at this photograph without noticing it at all.
And yet, once you see it, it’s hard to stop looking at it.
I don’t know who left it there. Maybe someone forgot it. Maybe they planned to come back for it. Maybe it had been sitting there for hours before I ever took the picture.
I have no idea.
But I started thinking about how different places can feel depending on when we see them.
A ballfield is usually somewhere you’d expect to hear people laughing, shouting, cheering, or arguing over whether somebody was actually out. 😂
There are games to be played, people to watch, and probably at least one person taking everything a little too seriously.
But here?
Nothing.
Just empty seats, an empty field, and one little red ball.
It’s funny how a place doesn’t have to change for it to feel completely different.
The bleachers are still there. The fence hasn’t moved. The field is exactly where it was before.
The only thing missing is the activity we associate with it.
And I think that’s what caught my attention about this photograph.
Not everything interesting has to be happening right in front of us.
Sometimes, it’s what isn’t happening that makes us stop and look.
I could have photographed the sky. The colors were beautiful, and the trees looked lovely against the fading light.
But I like this picture better.
Because there’s something about an empty place that makes you notice things you probably wouldn’t have seen when it was full.
Like a little red ball sitting quietly in the grass.
Something ordinary.
Something easily overlooked.
Something that made me stop for just a moment longer.
And sometimes, that’s enough.
Until next time,
— Destiny
P.S. Have you ever visited a familiar place when nobody else was around and realized how different it felt without all the usual noise?
My entire body goes into panic mode before the logical part of my brain has even had time to remind me that I am significantly larger than the thing currently ruining my day.
So naturally—
I took her picture.
😂
And somehow, out of all the pictures I could have taken of a spider I desperately wanted nowhere near me…
she decided to pose.
One leg stretched upward.
The others perfectly angled.
Body turned just enough to show off every stripe, every little patch of color, every horrifying hair on those ridiculously long legs.
She looks like she knew exactly where the camera was.
Which feels unnecessarily confident for something that almost made me leave my own backyard.
But then I looked at the photo.
Actually looked.
And—
damn it.
She’s beautiful.
I hate that.
😂
Her legs aren’t just black.
They’re banded with orange and yellow.
Her abdomen has this complicated pattern running across it that I never would have noticed if I hadn’t gotten close enough to take the picture.
Even the little hairs on her legs—the part I find particularly offensive—catch the light.
There is so much detail packed into something my brain normally reduces to one word:
SPIDER.
Danger.
Nope.
Get it away from me.
And I think that’s the interesting part.
Looking closer didn’t make me less afraid of her.
I didn’t take the picture and suddenly become a spider person.
Absolutely not.
I still wanted distance.
A lot of it.
Preferably several zip codes.
But for a minute, fear stopped being the only thing I could see.
There was fear.
And there was color.
Pattern.
Texture.
Structure.
Beauty.
All occupying the exact same frame.
I think sometimes we assume appreciating something means we have to stop being afraid of it.
Maybe we don’t.
Maybe two things can be true at once.
She scared the absolute shit out of me.
And—
she is gorgeous.
I can admit that.
From over here.
Very, very far away.
😂🖤
Maybe looking closer isn’t always about discovering that something wasn’t scary after all.
Sometimes it’s just about noticing that fear wasn’t the whole story.
Until next time,
-Destiny
P.S. Have you ever found something beautiful even though it scared you?
There isn’t a perfectly timed concert moment or something beautiful happening in the background.
It’s just a mug.
Sitting on my kitchen counter.
With a spoon sticking out of it.
If you didn’t know anything else, you could scroll right past this picture and never think twice about it.
But sometimes the pictures that look the most ordinary are holding things nobody else can see.
Today, while Doodoo was sleeping, I made myself a cup of tea.
Now, that part isn’t unusual.
I love tea.
If I have enough time in the morning, that’s usually what I reach for. All of my teas are caffeine-free, and there’s something about sitting down with a hot cup that I’ve always loved.
But this cup was a little different.
I didn’t make it just because I wanted tea.
I made it because I’m trying to have a baby.
And apparently, wanting something this badly finds its way into some really ordinary parts of your life.
The tea is Pink Stork’s fertility tea.
It has chaste tree berry and red raspberry leaf in it.
Does it work?
I have absolutely no idea.
😂
Am I willing to drink it anyway?
Absolutely.
Because that’s the thing about this fertility journey that I don’t think photographs very well.
A lot of it is invisible.
People see the obvious things.
The doctor appointments.
The conversations about treatment.
The prenatals sitting on the counter.
Eventually, hopefully, maybe one day—
a positive test.
But there’s a whole world happening between those moments.
The Googling.
The reading.
The wondering.
The vitamins.
The tea.
The little changes.
The things you try because somebody somewhere said they might help and you think:
Well…why not?
There’s a strange vulnerability in wanting something this badly.
Because suddenly even the smallest thing can feel connected to it.
You take the prenatal because the doctor told you to.
You make the tea because maybe.
You pay more attention to your body.
You start thinking about things you never used to think about.
You collect little pieces of possibility everywhere you can find them.
And none of those things come with guarantees.
That’s probably the hardest part.
I can do everything I’m supposed to do.
I can try the things that might help.
I can show up for appointments.
I can ask questions.
I can take the vitamins.
I can drink the tea.
And none of it allows me to skip ahead and see how this story ends.
So, for now—
I make the tea.
I sit with the uncertainty.
And I keep trying.
Maybe this cup is doing absolutely nothing except giving me something warm to drink.
That is entirely possible.
😂
But there was something about seeing it sitting there today that made me stop.
Because it didn’t look like much.
Just a green witchy mug on the counter.
But I knew what was inside it.
And more importantly—
I knew why I made it.
Hope doesn’t always look like some huge, beautiful moment.
Sometimes hope is incredibly boring.
Sometimes it comes in a vitamin bottle.
Sometimes it gets scheduled into a doctor’s appointment.
Sometimes it’s something you quietly research at night.
And sometimes—
it steeps in a mug while a little boy sleeps in the other room.
I think that’s what I like about this picture.
There is nothing extraordinary happening in it.
But there is an entire future I’m hoping for sitting just outside the frame.
And maybe that’s part of learning to look closer, too.
Noticing all the tiny things we do when we want something badly enough to keep believing it might happen.
Even when we don’t know what will work.
Even when there are no guarantees.
Even when, for today, hope looks like nothing more than a cup of tea.
Until next time,
—Destiny
P.S. What’s something small you’ve done because you were hoping for something much bigger?
I think one of my favorite things about doing this series is realizing that I don’t actually have to go looking for something worth photographing.
Most of the time, it’s already there.
I just have to notice it.
And apparently this week, the things that made me stop ranged from a tiny gothic sticker on a gas pump to Batman secretly being an alarm clock.
So.
You know.
A very normal assortment of things. 😂
A Tiny Gas-Pump Stranger
I stopped for gas this week and noticed this little lady hanging out on the pump.
That’s it.
That’s the entire story. 😂
I have absolutely no idea who put her there.
I don’t know how long she’s been there.
But there was something about this tiny, gothic, horned woman sitting directly above a giant WARNING sign that made me stop for a second.
Someone had this sticker.
Someone decided this gas pump was where she belonged.
And now everybody who stops there gets a tiny piece of that stranger’s personality without ever knowing who they were.
I kinda love that.
Lunch, According to Tiny Humans
This one is not pretty.
There is absolutely no artistic arrangement happening here. 😂
But this is what happens when you let a four-year-old and two one-year-olds have opinions about lunch.
Reese’s-filled pretzels.
Mandarin oranges—or, judging by the crime scene, what used to be mandarin oranges.
And whatever else apparently made sense at the time.
There are peels everywhere.
Containers everywhere.
Wipes in the background.
Random cups.
Absolute chaos.
And I almost wouldn’t have thought to take a picture of it because it’s just a messy table.
Except…
it’s also one of those pictures I think I’ll like more later than I do right now.
Because someday there won’t be tiny people making absolute disasters out of lunch.
And this?
This is what life looked like while there were.
Messy counts, too.
The Sky Was Showing Off
And then there was this morning.
Nothing particularly interesting was happening underneath that sky.
Buildings.
A fence.
A basketball hoop.
Trees.
Just ordinary things I see all the time.
But above all of it?
That.
Pink.
Orange.
Purple.
One of those sunrises that makes you stop whatever you’re doing for a second because apparently the sky has decided to be dramatic before you’ve even fully started your day.
And I’m glad I noticed.
Because a few minutes later, it was gone.
Wait…That’s a Clock?
And finally:
Batman.
One of my kiddos brought this into class today, and at first I didn’t think anything of it.
It was LEGO Batman.
Cool.
Then I looked again.
Wait.
Is Batman telling me what time it is?
😂
Apparently, yes.
It was an alarm clock.
I had looked directly at the giant digital numbers in his stomach and somehow my brain had decided those were simply none of my business.
And weirdly enough, I think Batman might sum up this entire series better than anything else I photographed this week.
Because Learning to Look Closer doesn’t always mean finding something beautiful.
Sometimes it does.
Sometimes you look up and catch a sunrise before it disappears.
But sometimes it means noticing a tiny sticker somebody left behind.
Sometimes it means realizing that the messy table in front of you is evidence of a very specific season of your life.
And sometimes…
it means looking at LEGO Batman twice before realizing the man has been telling you the time this entire time.
😂
There are things worth noticing everywhere.
Beautiful things.
Funny things.
Messy things.
Completely pointless little things that make you smile for half a second.
You just have to actually look at them.
Until next time,
—Destiny
P.S. What’s something you’ve looked directly at before realizing what you were actually looking at? 😂
Usually, Learning to Look Closer is about noticing the things we might otherwise miss.
The light coming through the trees.
The colors hiding in a sunset.
The tiny details we walk past every day because we’re too busy looking somewhere else.
It’s supposed to be about slowing down.
Paying attention.
Finding something beautiful in the ordinary.
Well.
I looked closer.
I would like to formally withdraw my previous advice. 😂
I’ve been sick all week.
And somewhere between laying in bed, watching entirely too much television, and feeling like my head was approximately 97% congestion, I decided it would be a good idea to go through all of my clothes.
Because apparently being sick wasn’t enough suffering.
So there I was.
Surrounded by clothes.
Completely out of energy.
Ready to give up on the entire project and crawl back into bed.
And then I looked up.
There he was.
A spider.
Just chilling above my bedroom door.
In my bedroom.
Rent free.
Like he had somewhere to be and I was interrupting him.
Now, there is something you should probably know about me.
I am terrified of spiders.
Not uncomfortable.
Not “Ew, a spider.”
Terrified.
And naturally, this little asshole had positioned himself somewhere I couldn’t reach him.
So I did what any brave, capable, independent 33-year-old woman would do.
I stared at him while trying to figure out how the hell I was going to kill him without getting close enough for him to potentially touch me.
There was just one problem.
I looked away.
For approximately half a second.
When I looked back—
he was gone.
Do you know what’s worse than seeing a spider in your bedroom?
NOT SEEING THE SPIDER YOU JUST SAW IN YOUR BEDROOM.
Because now we have options.
Is he behind the dresser?
Under the bed?
On the ceiling?
Did he leave?
Is he currently watching me write this?
WHERE DID YOU GO, SIR?
And why were you so fucking fast?! 😭
I read something once about jumping spiders that said they tend to have their own little routines.
They supposedly wander around the same areas doing their tiny spider business, so if you suddenly notice one somewhere you normally don’t, maybe you’re the one who stepped outside your usual routine.
I have absolutely no idea how scientifically accurate that is.
But I’ve been thinking about it.
Because maybe he’s been here before.
Maybe while I’ve been living my life, sleeping in my bed and minding my own business, this tiny creature has been living an entire little life alongside mine.
Taking the same routes.
Visiting the same places.
Doing whatever the hell spiders do all day.
And I simply never noticed him.
Until our routines crossed.
Which is actually kind of fascinating.
I hate it.
But it’s fascinating. 😂
Maybe there’s something to that.
There are entire little worlds existing around us all the time.
Things happening in corners we never look toward.
Creatures following routines we know nothing about.
Tiny lives intersecting with ours for a few seconds before disappearing again.
Sometimes looking closer means noticing a beautiful sunset.
Sometimes it means noticing the way two people love each other.
Sometimes it means finding something extraordinary hiding inside something completely ordinary.
And sometimes—
you look up while sorting clothes and discover that you apparently have a roommate.
A roommate who has now disappeared somewhere inside your bedroom.
So perhaps Learning to Look Closer needs one small amendment:
Pay attention to the world around you.
Notice the little things.
Look for what you normally overlook.
But occasionally?
Mind your fucking business.
Because now I know there’s a spider somewhere in my bedroom.
And I can never unknow it.
Until next time,
—Destiny
P.S. If you happen to know where my new roommate went, no you don’t. I would actually prefer to sleep tonight. 🕷️😭
There wasn’t anything particularly exciting happening.
I wasn’t somewhere new.
There wasn’t a perfect, wide-open view of the sunset.
There were just trees.
A lot of them, actually. 😂
Branches everywhere. Power lines near the bottom. One tree that looks like it gave up on having leaves before everybody else.
And somewhere behind all of it, the sky was glowing.
So I stopped.
And I looked up.
The sunset wasn’t perfectly framed. The trees blocked most of it. I couldn’t see the horizon, and there was no way to get a “better” view without going somewhere else.
But I didn’t really want a better view.
I liked this one.
Because the light kept finding little places to come through.
Between the branches.
Through the leaves.
Around the trees.
Little pieces of gold tucked into all that darkness.
And the longer I stood there looking at it, the more there was to see.
There was still blue hiding at the top of the sky.
Soft pink mixed into the clouds.
Bright yellow and orange burning through the thickest parts of the trees.
Living branches tangled together with bare ones.
None of it was neat.
None of it was unobstructed.
And somehow, that made it prettier.
I think sometimes we get so used to looking for the perfect view that we forget to appreciate the one we actually have.
We want the sunset without the power lines.
The sky without the branches.
The picture without anything getting in the way.
But maybe everything in the way is part of the picture, too.
Maybe the trees weren’t blocking the sunset.
Maybe they were showing me where the light was.
So, I took the picture.
Not because it was perfect.
Just because I looked up at the right moment and thought,
Oh.
That’s pretty.
And sometimes, that’s reason enough.
—Destiny
P.S. When was the last time you stopped to look at something ordinary long enough to realize it was actually kind of beautiful?
So at this point, I’m not entirely sure whether I’m observing nature or if I’ve accidentally entered into some kind of snack-based agreement with a squirrel.
Either way, she keeps coming back.
And I’ve started noticing little things.
How cautiously she approaches at first.
How she pauses like she’s deciding whether I can be trusted.
How quickly that hesitation disappears once food is involved.
Relatable, honestly. 😂
The first time I saw her, she was just a squirrel.
One of those little things you notice outside for a few seconds before going back to whatever you were doing.
But then I stopped.
I watched her.
I fed her.
And suddenly she wasn’t just a squirrel anymore.
She was Sandy.
There’s something kind of funny about that.
The world is full of things we pass every day without really seeing them.
Birds in the yard.
Bugs on the window.
Squirrels running across fences.
Sunsets behind trees.
They’re always there.
But sometimes all it takes is slowing down for a minute before something ordinary starts feeling a little less ordinary.
Maybe that’s what I like most about photography—and about this little series.
It gives me an excuse to stop.
To notice.
To pay attention long enough for a random squirrel to become Sandy. 😂
And apparently Sandy knows where the snacks are now.
So I have a feeling this won’t be the last time you hear about her.
Until next time,
—Destiny
P.S. Have you ever accidentally made friends with a wild animal?
