She Is Three

“She dreamt of the comfort of a hand holding hers, as though it had been meant to be there all along.”

I’ve been in a love affair for the last handful of years.

One that I ignored for a long time, prioritizing pretty much anything else over it.

I’ve been falling in love with photography and with my own life.

For this last stretch of my years (since my Saturn Return took hold of my life and shook everything up) I’ve been slowly yet deeply creating an artistic practise and a work life that I love, that is created as much from my triumphs as my missteps and failures.

Like any relationship, this love affair with life has been full of challenges and a whole lot of compromise.  It has been a slow and ever growing love.

I fell in love with the way the world looks through a camera and that love affair is wild and true and present every day.

I fell in love with the freedom (and privilege) of making my living as a creative entrepreneur, something I didn’t even dare dream up for myself but that happened despite my fear.

I’m so clear that I’ve been prioritizing this love affair with my creative life over any other.

I wouldn’t have changed these years at all.  I needed them fiercely.

But this love is now solid.  It isn’t going anywhere and my nurturing of it is stable and true.

When deciding what story I wanted to tell with this Months prompt here, this is what came up and felt true.  That I’m opening my hands again, letting go of holding only my own hand and leaving it open for another to slip into at some point…as though it was always meant to be there.

Yet holding one hand to my belly where I will keep this other love sacred.

Pictured from left to right:

“She dreamt of the comfort of a hand holding hers, as though it had been meant to be there all along.” ~Vivienne
“She fell asleep in the unmown grass, where she dreamt of innocence and dandelion wishes.” ~Jennifer
“She dreamt of returning to live by the Sea, so he grabbed her hand and stole her heart and said “Let’s go.” ~Deb

“She packed her bags and stopped along the way to unload her fears.” ~Deb

Fear.
What the hell?
Me?
Yes.
Fear of the unknown.
“But you love a new adventure” I said to myself.
So I stopped dead in my tracks. I opened my gut and listened to my heart.
I sat in silence. And once I was still long enough to calm those fears and voices in my head,
I realized just how fearless I really am!

I boldly stood up, with a brand new bag full of brave hopes and exciting plans.

You see, when we move to Florida away from Texas, it is no longer a fun vacation spent with my Mom & Jack. It is real life, paying bills and finding our way. And when that day comes, I will be fearless,
and not afraid.

My truth.
The “Story Behind Our Photos” are difficult for me to write.
Self portraits are easy for me to share. The viewer is left to create their own story and receive their own message.
But when I attach words to my photo, I become accountable for that truth.
My heart cracks wide open, spilling my emotions as I reveal the process I move through to create a photo. The shutter is easy for me to operate, but the keyboard seems to be more difficult as I spell out my feelings with the words you will read today.

“She packed her bags with gifts and colored her heart with memories.” ~Jennifer

I love to travel. Or I think I love to travel. It’s something I’ve done a lot during the past twenty years, yet before each and every trip, I get cold feet. I wonder what on earth I was thinking when I signed myself up for another whirlwind of planes, trains, and automobiles. I have an awful habit of packing the night before, no matter how huge the adventure. Traveling has a tendency to bring my worst fears to the surface, but at the same time, it bears so many beautiful rewards.

Traveling took on new meaning after my daughter was born. It meant no more packing at the last minute. It meant being responsible for more than just myself and my whims. A simple jaunt to the grocery store became a major undertaking. Still, we managed to do a few road trips, and even a couple small flights. They were challenging but manageable. When I applied for a writing conference in Italy, Anthony and I agreed that the three of us would go as a family if I were accepted. After several months, the news came.  I got in. Suddenly, the thought of traveling 4,688 miles with a one year-old seemed impossible and unfair to everyone involved. And so a huge decision had to be made. I needed to either go alone or not go at all.

I went. Alone. For the first time since she was born, I was away from my little girl. I’d never been separated from her for more than a couple hours, and I flew to another continent without her. I was terrified and guilt-ridden, but I knew it was something I had to do. My well had run dry and I needed to fill it, for all of our sakes.

Those eight days were an enormous gift. Although I didn’t get much sleep, I did get to reconnect to myself and to a wonderful group of writers. Thanks to Skype, I was able to see my loves and stay connected to them. Now that I’m home, it feels like the whole experience was a dream. But I know it happened. I have this picture to prove it. I sat in front of my balcony with the teal shutters and carefully gathered the gifts I had bought. Now when I see the handpainted ceramic bell on my daughter’s nightstand, or the heart-shaped plate I gave Anthony setting on the kitchen counter, I remember the colors of that tiny town on the Amalfi Coast with fondness and gratitude.

“She packed her bags, put them down and walked away, with a weight lifted from her shoulders.” 

We tend to remember those moments when everything changes, but healing from them: that’s a different story.

There isn’t one moment when we suddenly realize ‘In this moment I just went from coping to being okay’.

We ease from being in survival mode or grieving and slowly in days, weeks, months, years, decades.   We slowly are okay again.

This was on my mind when I was shooting this month’s theme of “She packed her bags”.

I had in my mind the three times I’ve been robbed in my home since I moved to Vancouver 6 years ago.  How that moment that a man came in through my kitchen window in the middle of the night changed everything for me.  Then when he came back again 2 nights later I didn’t think I would ever feel safe again.  Then when I finally started to let go years later, it happened again.

How it took the cracks that were already strained and broke them open so I couldn’t just glue them together and try to be okay.  I had to let them heal, very slowly.

In the end what came from that slow healing was so beautiful, but it wasn’t a pretty process, that’s for sure.

I’ve been thinking about how long it took me to feel like I could go to bed at night without checking the door and the window dozens of times.  Peeking out the window again and again to make sure there was no one lurking around.

There wasn’t just one moment when it was all okay again but it eased slowly into a new sense of safety in the last year, something I never thought I’d feel again.  Letting that sense of safety become my new norm, rather than mistrust or fear.

I thought about how the remnants of that experience were still in my psyche and how by noticing that I am indeed finally okay, it shifts something.

I am packing those remaining bits up in a flowery vintage suitcase, thanking them for all that they did to get me through and leaving them behind.

Pictured from left to right:

“She packed her bags, put them down and walked away, with a weight lifted from her shoulders.” ~Vivienne
“She packed her bags with gifts and colored her heart with memories.” ~Jennifer
“She packed her bags and stopped along the way to unload her fears.” ~Deb

“She looked within and saw herself looking back.” ~Deb

Look within.
This has always been a challenging, intimidating, soul searching prompt.

No matter if you are the one asking the question to yourself,
or if someone else dares you to look beyond the surface of who you represent yourself to be.

It is an opportunity to dig a little deeper. Become a little bit braver.
Trusting yourself with honesty and faith.

Come on now. Shed a few layers. Peel down to the core.
EXPOSE your true self.

For this photo, I stripped down bare, held my own hands to my heartself and looked within.

Whenever I need to find the answers, I become deaf to the voices surrounding me.
I ignore the expectations of others. I listen to my own truths.

I grab myself, hold on tight and say “Let’s roll”

I adopted this line “Let’s roll” from my adult son after I heard those final words before his first deployment to Iraq.
I continue to look at him when I need to be reminded of strength, bravery and tenacity.

“She looked within and realized that she didn’t have to be hide anymore.” ~Jennifer

“She looked within and trusted that everything would unfold as it should.” ~Vivienne

I really love that we are telling you the stories behind the photos.  Because there is always a story.

To tell you the truth, though my image to me looks very peaceful and happy, the story behind it is something different.

It is the story of a woman trying to make her living creatively and the major ups and downs that that involves.

It is the story of a woman who believes in her vision wholeheartedly but loses faith sometimes when it comes to the business side of it.

It is the story of prioritizing making ends meet over sitting in fancy coffee shops going out for gorgeous meals.  It is the story of reconnecting with the homemade, the simple, for the sake of living within her means and for her happiness as a whole.

It is the story of ebb and flow, of making mistakes and learning from them, of being a wildflower of a creative dreamer and trying to learn about how to run a business.

It is the story of soaking up the sunshine, absorbing enough vitamin D to get her through the grey days.

It is the story of a day where she has faith in the beauty of it all, both the rough and the radiant.

Pictured from left to right:

“She looked within and trusted that everything would unfold as it should.” ~Vivienne

“She looked within and realized that she didn’t have to be hide anymore.” ~Jennifer

“She looked within and saw herself looking back.” ~Deb