Wishing you a warm, peaceful holiday season
⋆꙳•❅*🎄*❆•꙳⋆
on and on
Life begins and ends and begins again. We move forward, hopefully with gratitude and acknowledgement that we stand upon what came before.
at what depths
A warning against “truths”
that are only “truths” because they were forcibly written,
that become shackles on our minds,
balms that turn into poison,
water that held but is now drowning.
What power we have over each other.
Rest Here
A funny thing to be interrupted during change. To be moving one direction, ready for what comes next, then suddenly, a stop. A rest you didn’t expect may now be what’s necessary..
So, take it when it’s given. Go easy when you can. Come back to the hard things, but flow with the simple.
like water
This week started with a heaviness. Our weekend was lovely, and full, but the weight of senseless violence in the news right now hit so hard this morning.
I feel the urge to grasp everything I can even remotely call mine, and not let go.
Life doesn’t work this way. We never really have a grip, do we, before things shift.. and the violence of those shifts feels so unnecessary, yet, it simply is. Like water. We move with it, sometimes working with, sometimes battling. Enjoying it, being terrified, mystified, calmed, overwhelmed, drowned.
For every senseless act that shakes our very foundations, the opposite exists— the deepest love, the most indescribable beauty. That’s what I’m trying to focus on at this point. But my heart is hurting for just how horrible we can and at times are to each other. Let’s all actively work against this trend.
Be good.
learning
Courage is a learned behavior. A lot of people say I just don’t have it in me, as if other people just got it and they didn’t. It’s just not like that.
You can learn courage the way you learn to walk.
-Zarna Garg
basis
What is the basis of a life spent in captivity?
Bainbridge
The last time I rode the ferry to Bainbridge Island, I was 22. The weather was stormy, I shot with a zoom lens, had no children, and was living in the city for a month in a fully furnished apartment with my husband. We had this idea we’d try out the place. Life in Alabama felt like the wrong equation, no matter how many variables we shifted.
Then, we had our first kiddo. She was a wonderful, all consuming beam of light, who, combined with her sister a little later, kept us in the South another 3 years. Then, it was time to go. We headed West.
It was both an easy transition, and not. We left a place we’d lived our entire life, on the basis of vibes. Perhaps that doesn’t give enough credit— housing, prices, community, etc were checked, lots of conversations were had, feasibility was obsessed over. My husband and I are both first borns, burdened with glorious purpose, and whatnot 😉😉 And, it did take some doing to transition a life 2600 miles away. We sold a house, my husband and some family/friends drove our cars and a dog, and I flew with a 3 y/o & a 5 month old to stay with friends till they arrived in Washington. Some of the images from this time might be on this blog, way way back. I can’t remember.
I took this image a few weeks ago, standing with one of those kids. Looking at it now causes introspection, but also the happy memory of being on our way to our 13 year old’s soccer game. The sun was out, my coat was warm, and my younger kiddo stood close, our excitement about the Seattle skyline in tandem.
By now, we all know this influence with photography, right?
But still, we’ve wondered. Our life here is good, but we hope we’ve made the right call. Awarness of different timelines can be a heavy thing, if you let it. My sincere hope in our 10th year is that moving forward we continue with mindfulness and gratitude. That we see what we still want and what we already have with balanced clarity.
Lot’s of words before 7am PST. Hopefully they make sense 😉
Remembrance
I listened to a voicemail from my late grandpa yesterday. I suppose it was a morbid curiosity. It had been years since I heard his voice, but managed to have the wherewithal to save the last voicemail he ever left. It isn’t anything special, he simply asks me to give him a call, in a slightly annoyed voice, an awkward pause in between his words.
My grandpa was gregarious. Used to being in charge, and getting what he wanted, my grandpa was a person of action, who couldn’t quite understand the inaction of others. But, he wasn’t a tyrant. He had a generous heart, and a humorous spirit, both often cranked to 11. I suppose some people could have called him the jolly tyrant, because often, the volume of his personality and ideas overshadowed and usurped the wants of others. I remember lots of times being annoyed that he couldn’t just leave people alone.
But also, he was a deeply positive influence in my life. One I didn’t realize until the final months of his battle with cancer. These sorts of life events cause a person to look back, and through that examination, I came to understand just how much he took care of me, kept me safe from certain unfortunate childhood experiences. How, when I outgrew my bedroom furniture that he bought, it was him to replace it. How he set up a college fund. How he often was an invisible resource for so many things. I spent nearly every weekend with him and my grandmother. He would pick me up from school on Friday. It was my favorite day— the one day I didn’t spend an hour riding a bus and being teased for being the fat kid. On Fridays, I was spared the soul crushing taunts of southern Alabama rural county kids. Believe me, those kids are brutal.
The bottom line is my grandfather had a profound and at the exact same time, almost imperceptible impact on my life. He was a big person, a loud person, but boy did he give a damn. He had deep belief in the idea of family, and stepped up to fill roles that were missing in ways I saw, and others I’m sure I’ll never know about.
And so, something as simple as a voicemail can really undo a person. When I hear it, I don’t hear the frustration at not being able to get a hold of me right away, but the angst of my grandpa losing the ability to speak. The cancer slowly removed his communication, then look his physical faculties over the course of several months. It forced him to sit with his ultimate end for far too many hours. It wasn’t fair for a person who wanted to skydive again, who had so many people they still wanted to care for, a woodworking shop they had just built to make gifts, grandkids they wanted to laugh with.
Each year of elementary school, he and my grandmother would drive 45 minutes to film me and my siblings getting on the bus. I hated it. I was embarrassed, quiet, angry, every single time. He was exuberant and incessant, his camcorder in my face before 8:30 in the morning.
I miss him. I wish I could thank him.
Maple Blanket
A scene prior to a family session a couple weeks ago.
prayers
A hope for success and harmony,
a growing of muscles and bandwidth and ability..
Are we what we came into the world as?
How much can be shaped, shorn, shared?
Is desire and hard work enough to bushwhack through the mental wilderness.
Can enough ground be cleared, a runway made for the take off?
Not seeking no hard work,
but flight, and flight with other birds, who know the power of air, without seeing it.
I’m not asking for wings, I can see my own.
I simply want strength to fly.
a gratitude
The enormous privilege to make a life and give it more than you could have imagined.. and the gratefulness around this ability, sometimes hits me. Like on moments on a ferry when, in real time, it seems you’re watching your child shift into something new.
She’ll be 10 soon, well on her way to teenage years. But in this moment, I see the middle- the child, who still is amazed by this new skyline view, but is capable such complexity in her perspective.
When they say these years in between are magic, I get it. I know the path we’re headed down soon isn’t an easy one, as demonstrated by her older sister. But the gratitude for now, practicing that feels so important for the emotional muscle needed in the future.
Ferry Ride
When you stick a camera outside the window of a moving ferry, you probably should share the image.
Little Giants
The compulsion to write about giants when posting a mushroom picture is strong. They’re the most delicate part of a huge system, something we’ve only recently begun to understand. And “understand” is a bit overstated. I think we’ve only just started to have the tools to explore what’s going on with mycelium.
I love how mysterious the natural world is. Depths we could explore, both figurative and literal, still exist. We are part of a complex and dynamic system, one we can work with if we adopt a holistic lens. It’s a lot of hope, I get it. We also continue to do things at odds with our world. Short term beings do have a hard time with the long term view. However, I have hope in our goodness, our curiosity, our empathy. Hearing about people with much more knowledge and specialization who continue to push their passions forward, who understand we are a part.. that is exciting.
Again, it’s a lot of hope, but that’s the vibe today.
Brought to you by the letter S
Scenes seen and schemed
from the sideways seconds of a solid subaru
so similar so separate.
I’m speeding somewhere for sporting,
they stay still and silent.
You CAN take it with you
…a camera, that is.
My annoying habit of leaving the camera at home is finally starting to break. Case in point, just this weekend we went to the peninsula for a soccer game Saturday, then took a long walk up a local mountain on Sunday.
The ferry weather was gorgeous, the city, sparkling in the low sun angled light of the PNW, light that hits from the side due to latitude. The water was calm, the wind, not too bad. I found myself exceptionally inspired by everything, pumped, and jazzed about water patterns, windows framing things, reflections.
None of this is new under the sun.. but on Saturday the scenes breathed novel life into my travel image eye. Excited to share the images this week.
Memory vs Reality
This wasn’t in the fall, but there is a seasonal sense of peace to this frame.
It also was anything but quiet. The roar of the ocean, the frantic playful squawking of pelicans, shrill cries of delight from tourist children not pictured.. Our images don’t always accurately showcase reality, but it’s alright. The memory is a good one.
sermon
One lives in the midst of a silent sermon all the time.
- Joseph Campbell
November
In November the bones of the earth begin to show. What was hidden reveals itself, and in that revealing, we find what is essential.
-Clarissa Pinkola Estés
End of October Thoughts #4
Back around the beginning of October I had an idea for a project. Basically, I’d drive around documenting as many of Bellingham's giant skeletons as I could under a time crunch. My kids would accompany me as often as possible in the personal minutes between activities, errands, and work.
And guess what? We actually made it happen. It was a fun, low-stakes side quest during a busy season, with a rewarding visual outcome!
No Bones About It
or, one small town's obsession with death.
You can see the rest here.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!