For my eyes only

My current desktop background is a picture of my wife. I took it on our recent vacation. She is standing on the deck of a sailboat. We had just finished snorkeling. Her hair is wet and slicked back. She is not wearing her glasses. Her makeup has been washed away by the warm salty waters of the Caribbean near Buck Island.

The picture is a close up, I suppose it is not the most flattering picture of her, but it is one of my favorites. It shows her in a moment of pure and complete happiness.  Her smile is not for the camera, but a reflection of life in that one instant in time. Her beauty shines through. The impossible blue tropical seas in the background are a sharp contrast to the pink of her barely visible swimsuit top. You can see the faint and tiny wrinkles around her eyes, and the freckles on her cheeks and chest and shoulders.

I love the picture because it is not staged -- it is barely posed -- and it looks just like my wife. If the picture was in a Harry Potter movie, it would laugh at any second.

I smile every time I look at it.