Airborn skybound.
Contrast #5
It’s a beautiful necessary mess, this one.
Contrast #4
“Pippin: I didn't think it would end this way.
Gandalf: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it.
Pippin: What? Gandalf? See what?
Gandalf: White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.
Pippin: Well, that isn't so bad.
Gandalf: No. No, it isn't.”
From The Return of the King (movie)
Contrast #3
the hailstones, the thunderclaps,
the warm and cold,
the spectrum’s end.
The power at both sides, only made real by what silently lies between.
Contrast #2
That which is delicate.
Contrast #1
A gull on the sidelines.
my divorce from all or nothing thinking
A casual stroll away from the anxiety of extremes.
Twenty-two days into 2026. This year feels tight. Schedules are full of intentional choices, surprises, good and bad. Our platter of memory is being added to daily. Air is clear and crisp, the sun making a few appearances, despite the PNW’s notoriety for rain. Frost sits, unbothered in the long shadows cast by northern latitude. The world is full of contrasts. I long to be liminal.
My words this year are “listening” and “truth.” At the heart of these selections is an urge to step away from the intensity of previous perspectives. This all or nothing feeling has directed my life more than I care to admit. It has kept me from exploring, extinguished curiosity, crushed creativity. It has turned mistakes I could have learned from into existential threats.
What a person wants often comes with what they do not want. I wrote something the other day, a feeling that might quantify the attitude I long to sever from:
“I find so much joy in the simple things, and often make the dumbest of mistakes, that I worry I’ll appear a simpleton at best, and at worst an idiot.”
Looking at it now, this is both a harsh statement and true to my feelings. Most important, it is an example of mental scaffolding that needs examination. An unfair and extreme hypothesis, without the cushion of nuance. Rinse and repeat this attitude for a myriad of moments and thought.
But 2026. This year of listening requires I turn my ear to these thoughts so maybe they don’t have to be as loud. Let them sit and be as they are. Then gently respond with truth. And “truth” is not synonymous with “all answers at all times.” Truth allows for liminal spaces, the hazy hallways of yes, no, and everything in between. An acknowledgment that sometimes the reality is far more complicated or even different than your valid feelings can express.
Listening and truth extend externally as well. I want truth in voicing a dissent, rather than the quasi-peace of dishonest silences. I hope to listen when my heart stirs, noticing what it stirs to, and inviting others along, not undone by an RSVP of “no.” I want to hear the truth of others, in their actions and ideas, and act accordingly.
There is so much noise we would label as music, so much data we would label as truth. So many extremes that cause us to over index and miss the in between. Extremes that keep us from making the phone call, sending the email, getting outside, writing the newsletter. And yes, it is an extreme to divorce oneself from previous ways of thought. But the honest truth is, I do like a sprinkling of drama as I walk away from my relationship with a bad perspective. I love to smile and laugh, and I equally take myself far too seriously. I’m listening.
divergence of perspective
what a difference 10 minutes with the morning dew can make.
technically
Playing around with some technicolor while prepping thank you notes for this upcoming spring school portrait season. As I get deeper into the school portrait side of my business, I love adding personal touches that might not exist otherwise in high volume work.
A simple scene from a foggy December morning, turned into a different sort of magic when I added my Lightroom rainbow mask. 😍
Scenes Revealed
I had the audacity to call this image Hitchcockian.
But I was honest.
A leaf and the sum of its parts.
Finding those simple moments on a walk, finding my camera actually works, after being sent in for repairs, finding this year will be about the small things adding up to larger ones.
It’s cliche, but already I feel 2026 shaping itself around the theme of its parts, the collective sum. There are intentions around remembering this, how each small moment can matter.
Serendipity
Right place, right time. Setting an intention for the year to bring that camera, utilize curiosity, and infuse some ease into my creative process. Beauties like this one drop in more that way.
Burning the Old Year
Letters swallow themselves in seconds.
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.
So much of any year is flammable,
lists of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days,
so little is a stone.
Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers.
Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,
only the things I didn’t do
crackle after the blazing dies.
That Mucky Monday on a Tuesday Feeling
There are days where my mental wheels are spinning in place, the ruts getting deeper, the mud getting stickier, the thoughts growing more frantic as I consider the question: will I’ll actually wrench the vehicle of my mind from the muck of this tiredness and move forward?
There isn’t a photo for today. Might be a first, posting with no imagery.
I am needing to write, needing to problem solve, needing to communicate. And all variations of this feel like grey putty. Generally, when these feelings come on, food, water, or movement is the answer. So I’m telling myself: step away from this for a minute. Stand up, get out, walk around, eat something, assess the situation with some distance.
If this is you today, solidarity.
Dawn
This dawn of truth
should be handled like the gift it is,
ready to be received.
⋆꙳•❅*
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.