To The Mother of My Son

It’s taken me almost 2 weeks to write this.  It’s taken me almost 2 weeks to sift through the feels of a deeply powerful and weighty experience of my only son graduating from high school and turning 19 within 5 days of each other.  It’s taken me almost two weeks for the magnitude of the bigger picture of his story to tumble out into words that barely do justice to how I feel about it.  But, here they are.  I have many pictures of his mother that, out of respect for Perez’s request, won’t be shared here.  Maybe someday.  When it’s not so immediate.  When it’s not so visibly on our sleeves.  Maybe not.  Maybe some things are just meant to be silently cherished. For now, this.

This is Justine.

The mother of my son.

And the sole reason he walked across that stage last weekend with a high school diploma in hand.

There are often specifically powerful moments in the life of motherhood.  Ones we remember with acuteness and clarity.  Ones that prick our senses and pull at our heartstrings.  This is one of them.

It’s times like this…milestones, monuments, rites of passage; moments where our kids feel so adult that we naturally go back to the years when they weren’t.  Back to their beginnings. Back to their births or their firsts…day of school, haircut, lost tooth.  We temper the fear of being left behind, of loss, of aging, with the remembrance of presence and youth.  That remembering is vital to how we process as parents and how we move forward into a new season.  It is both grief and hope in the same breath.  It is acceptance of our temporary-ness, of Times one way arrow and the beauty of the movement of life.

Adoptive parents, specifically, have a unique experience in this endeavor.  Often times we can’t go back to our child’s beginnings.  There are frequently no poignantly personal images we can conjure up.  There are many missing pieces to the puzzles of our children’s lives.  There are secrets, unknowns, painful experiences that have been pushed out of memory.

So, we go back to the only beginnings we have, the beginnings we know.

I go back 13 years to a dimly lit office in a concrete school building.  I am sitting in a slatted, white plastic lawn chair pushed up against a concrete wall knees length away from a thick wood desk.  Behind that desk is a pastor I have come to know and I am fixated on his dark face.  He is sweating and wiping his forehead with a small swath of fabric.  A colorfully patterned curtain shifts slightly with a breeze coming through a slit of an open window.  On my left, Justine, my son’s biological mother.  Short, her face round with wide cheekbones, strong posture.  We have just met.  On my right, a 6 year old Perez, skinny and wiry and dark.  I hold both of their hands and bury my eyes into the face of the Pastor directly in front of me as he translates Justine’s words.  His English is understandable through a thick accent and a slight lisp.

I can feel the heat of her body next to mine, feel her breath as she talks over me directly to Perez.  ‘This is your mother,’ she says, tapping her finger on my chest.  My tears come fast.  ‘Respect her.  Do as she tells you to do.  Love her like she is your own.  She will not abandon you.  She will walk with you…’ and at that point my chest is heaving and everyone’s words are dull, the face of the pastor is blurred through hot tears streaming down my face.  I refuse to let go of either of their hands to wipe them and my chin literally drops to my heaving chest. There are no more words I understand.  She keeps talking.  He keeps translating.  I keep crying.  Three overlapping voices, one of Luganda, one in English, one of heavy breaths, all intense and deep and full of passion.  I remember nothing more of those words; of that motherly direction to her only son.  I remember nothing more of that moment, but the view of tear drops soaking quickly into the fabric of my skirt and the sweat building in between strongly pressed palms.  

I weep because I am afraid.  I weep because I have no idea what it means to be a mom to him, to try to live up to a love that is being acted out in that very room at that very moment.  A love that was loving him into an opportunity.  A love that was utterly selfless.

And the night of his graduation, after midnight, after all the parties and friends and smiles and confetti.  I sat outside, whiskey in hand, my chin dropped to my chest, my tears once again soaking into my skirt.  And I drank and wept and remembered.  Not because my kid is grown and graduated and I’m missing his younger days. But, because I felt the weight of his story.  The imperfect balance of what was stolen from him and traded in for this precise moment.  The selfless and desperate acts of a Ugandan woman who loved him into this exact space in time.  The weighty understanding of my place in this story.  His story.  Her story.  And I can say with conviction: this is not my victory.  This is theirs to own.  His hard work.  His courage.  Her unending and selfless love.  To honor that is the only thing that makes sense right now.

Over the course of many years of trips to Uganda and countless hours spent in homes being honored by the people who are connected by blood to my son, I’ve realized, time and time again, that I had/have huge shoes to fill. That the act of selfless love is never a single ’act’.

And I’ve realized, time and time again, what it’s like for a village to raise a child.  For a God to knit together and orchestrate a life.  For people to walk alongside people. To guide, to cheer, to love as one body.  

And I honor that in you, Justine.  And I honor that in all of you across the globe who have chosen to give of what you had and what you held dear, so that this child could have a chance at something bigger.  That he could thrive.

And, well, he did it.  

And you did it.

Lasts

For the past 3 years, I have had the privilege of photographing my son’s football games from the field.  I don’t like football, but I love watching him play.  And, secretly, standing on the sidelines in the midst of a messy jumble of sweaty, armored teens erupting in shouts is something that grew on me in ways I never expected.   The constant motion of the machine of a team, the focus, the camaraderie.  From the loudest shouts to the barely audible pep talk of one player to another.  I grew to love it.  And, I see it as a complete privilege that I was granted permission to be in that space, to share a tidbit of my son’s experience as a football player.  

As most of you know, Perez has had the dream to be an NFL quarterback since 6th grade, a year before I was finally coerced enough to let him play.  That dream has swelled and deflated and changed shape and acquired wisdom and been forced down a different path many times over the past 6 years.  And, well, that is currently not the make-up of the dream anymore.  But, the process of those years has been vitally influential and has taken energy and commitment and devotion. And a willingness to morph and flux and change.

Perez has given so much of his life to this activity.  He has been dedicated to learning, staying up late studying playbooks, practicing after practice, working his body to exhaustion.  Building up teammates, sticking through failures.  The whole deal.  It’s a lot.  Football is a lot.

And when you spend 4 years of high school going into battle with the kids standing next to you and the coaches who have raised you and you have sharpened up and sucked up and went over and above everything that was expected of you to give to something you love for a damn long time and it ends… well, the feels of all of those things flood into a boy all at once.  The memories of all things put into this one thing.  The release of so many emotions that weren’t ever given space until the finality of the last game.

In addition to digital, I shot two rolls of film that night.  There was something monumental that needed to be honored.  His devotion, his energy, his effort; important moments that needed to be preserved and made permanent.

Shockingly, I realized these are the very first images I have of my son in film.  At 18 years old.  

I can promise you they will not be the last.

And, that will not be his last.  Last high school game, yes.  But, there is a promising future ahead for him.  We don’t know all the details quite yet, but this year begs to show us even more of what this kid is capable of on that field.  

Lady 'Liberty'

The Statue of Liberty, on Liberty Island in New York harbor, is an obvious tourist attraction and an icon that should not be missed when in NYC. That being said, when I photographed her, I was in a very different place on every level. In looking up specific dates of arrival in the harbor, etc. to add to this IG post, I was enlightened to a history of her that I was never taught in grade school or that I never paid attention to in any other facet. I have been ignorant of the measure of this symbol on so many levels. Yes, the statue of Liberty was given as a gift from the French people commemorating the alliance of France and the United States during the American Revolution. Arriving in New York Harbor in 1885, it was the hope of many French liberals that democracy would prevail and that freedom and justice for all would be attained. No, freedom and justice for all does not mean freedom and justice for all.   The ‘iconic representation of American freedom and liberation’ that it was intended to be, pertained to a very limited and elite people group. The statue as a representation of ‘freedom’ and ‘enlightenment’ did not and possibly still does not represent that to all. 

The following excerpt is from a history of the Statue of Liberty from Indiana University in 2005, done as a historical research study for the National Parks Service. It is mind opening. Read this excerpt and continue to read even further on the document itself: http://www.cesu.umn.edu/sites/cesu.umn.edu/files/statueofliberty.pdf

Perhaps due to the disparity between the ideals of freedom that the statue was said to represent and the reality that most African Americans experienced, their attitude toward the statue was understandably ambivalent. A Philadelphia African American paper, the Christian Recorder, followed the Statue of Liberty’s progress intently from fundraising appeals to the dedication itself. The paper’s November 4, 1886 editorial was a sarcastic reaction to the pomp and bland patriotism of the celebration. After recounting the decorations and some of the speeches, the editorial stated:

To us, who are struggling to build a standing foundation for right life and growth, hardly thinking of looking to such heights as the conception of monuments building, all this display has somewhat the effect of the gilded mental phenomena of joyous dream, and passes away with too much of its regretfulness.

This comparison of the optimism and celebration of the dedication to a joyous dream emphasized the editorialist’s belief that official speeches at the dedication had little to do with the lives of most African Americans. The editorial further satirized the emphasis on business and economic opportunity at the dedication:

But when read the history of those Bartholdi statuists as it appears on the long page of their history, observing whence they came, out of what degradation and obscurity, out of what ignorance and vice, out of what barbarism and shame - all by internal energies, aided by that benign influence always given from above to the struggling energies of God's sons in their attempts to regain their divine excellence, we are encouraged to purer thoughts and nobler deeds.

Frustration at the disparity between the idealized version of liberty offered at the dedication and the daily lives of many African Americans led to a sarcastic disavowal of any connection to the Statue of Liberty.

The Cleveland Gazette had an even harsher reaction to the dedication. Just weeks after its lighthearted and approving description of the statue’s festivities on Bedloe’s Island, the editors of the Cleveland Gazette used the Statue of Liberty as a symbol to protest the failings of liberty in American society. On November 27, 1886, the Gazette published an editorial:

It is proper that the torch of the Bartholdi statue should not be lighted until this country becomes a free one in reality. ‘Liberty enlightening the world’ indeed! The expression makes us sick. This government is a howling farce. It cannot or rather does not protect its citizens within its own borders. Shove the Bartholdi statue, torch and all, into the ocean until the ‘liberty’ of this country is such as to make it possible for an industrious and inoffensive colored man in the South to earn a respectable living for himself and his family, without being ku-kluxed perhaps murdered, his daughter and wife outraged, and his property destroyed. The idea of the ‘liberty’ of this country ‘enlightening the world,’ or even Patagonia, is ridiculous in the extreme.

This editorial was the first instance where the idealized freedom enjoyed by United States citizens—symbolized by the Statue of Liberty—was contrasted against a violent reality by an African American writer. In a world where African Americans could be lynched with few consequences for the vigilantes, the statue’s promise of the ability to live a life free of government intervention—as many of the dedication speakers interpreted it—rang hollow. Many African Americans would have welcomed government intervention to end lynchings.

That being said, I’m hesitant to post these images for obvious reasons. Do some research.  Do a lot of research.  Learn this history.  It is not nearly as glamorous and honorable as I was taught.

Knowing what I know now, would I still have photographed her? Yes.

Would how I represented her and the ways in which I viewed her have changed? Also, yes. 

Interestingly, many of the images I captured were from behind her. I, in no way, did that with any reference to the following insight from W.E.B Du Bois’s Autobiography, but, I think it is particularly powerful now.

The Statue of Liberty was not entirely anathema to African Americans in the 1890s, however. In his Autobiography of W. E. B. Du Bois: A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life From The Last Decade of the First Century, Du Bois detailed a trip to Europe between 1892 and 1894. After describing his travels, Du Bois discussed his return to America by ship, amusingly telling about the immigration of some of the people on this ship and through his words in effect including himself in an immigrant narrative. He described the class system on the ship, the barriers of color in place, and the “half- educated men” on the ship coming to America for opportunity. As in many immigrant narratives, the Statue of Liberty occupied a place toward the end. Du Bois described his experience upon sighting the statue, not as a quasi-religious feeling or overwhelming joy, but rather with some amusement as he recalled an incident from his travels. As Du Bois related, when he saw the statue, “I know not what multitude of emotions surged in the others, but I had to recall that mischievous little French girl whose eyes twinkled as she said: ‘Oh, yes, the Statue of Liberty! With its back toward America, and its face toward France!’” Du Bois thus subverted the traditional immigrant narrative: first placing himself as an African American among the white immigrants, second by reacting with amusement to the sight of the statue, and third by reminding the world that the Statue of Liberty was French, not American in origin. It may also have been that Du Bois saw the statue’s position “with its back toward America” as ironically suggestive of the position that white America and the promises of American liberty had in relation to African Americans such as himself.

This is where I am right now. In a place where, what I was taught or what I learned or what I experienced as a white upper middle class woman, was created to uphold and support a patriarchy of white christian men. And it is a vital awakening. One that continues to break open and peel back layers and expose many things inside of me and many things I do by default. It has formed how I create. And, I am currently devouring the things, such as this history, that are setting me to rights and putting me on a path of an understanding of true freedom and liberation and what that might really mean ‘for all’.

Brain Dump. No.1

Some people have iPhone photo dumps or brain dumps, where they just need to get all the stuff out in order to clear space for new stuff or to let it stop freezing them up and move into a new version or move forward.  Well, this is a literary version of the same thing.  A dump of the past month of conversations and internal workings.  It’s all stuff that matters and that I will continue to process and probably continue to write about more cohesively.  But for now, the dump and the vision for moving ahead.  

I’m still recovering from the past couple weeks.  No, not because I was sick, but because I was burdened.  I’ve been sifting through so many things, excavating….and, it’s one of those weird times where you know nothing actually ‘happened’, but it feels like everything happened.  And the world looks different.  Like tiny little pieces of things start chipping off…small micro griefs, minuscule let downs, emotional whispers and soon enough you realize crap is different and you feel heavy.

I was recently talking with a friend of mine who’s going through a tough time right now.  She made the comment, ‘how are you so eloquent all the damn time?’  And I laughed, in text mind you (lol), and corrected her, knowing that I am not so eloquent all the damn time.  And this is one of those times.  Where I’m not crafting something eloquent because I feel like what needs to come out just needs to come out. Sometimes, if I take the time for promptings and thoughts to become eloquent before I write them down, they slip out the back door without saying goodbye or leaving a note.  So here we are, words are jumbled and weird and there’s too many of them and there isn’t any great vocabulary or any proper punctuation or anything like that.  Just words on a page that maybe fill in some gaps.  More like my journals, full of scribbles in the margins and scratch-outs and incomplete sentences and that type of stuff.  Exactly what my inner life feels like a lot of the time.  

So, like I said, the past couple weeks have been heavy for me.  I’ve been struggling through grief with friends and realizing the grief I hold of my own.  Trying to understand medical diagnoses.  I’ve stared at the wall a lot and stared out the window a lot.  I’ve sat in the same chair for far too long and tried to just deal with stuff in my body, emotionally and physically.  I’ve had fights with my kids and fights with my spouse and fights with the dog and fights with myself and fights with technology.  

I’ve been furious at friends, harboring jealousy, feeling unwanted.

And, at the same time, digging into questions about art and being an artist and having lots of unique and multilayered conversations with people along those lines.  Which also lends itself to lots of staring at the wall.  It’s less about art per se, and more about the inner workings of art, where it’s coming from…things I’ve spouted about in IGTV videos previously, the why’s of creating and sharing.  I’ve always felt inferior and like, ‘not an artist’, because I’ve never had that totally dialed in.  I’ve taken some personal hits as of late from people whom I love to no end who have pointed out all those inconsistencies.  I’ve gone into deeper depth with other artists and good friends about functioning on autopilot instead of being intentional.  And then dug into the questions of my autopilot being geared toward making me happy and satisfying myself and validating myself.  And is that unique to me or is that an across-the-board human thing.  Addressing accusations of vanity and self importance and looking intently into narcissism and what I do and have done that is inline with all that and how my self-deprecating style basically begs people to validate me.  How I have a history of preloading because I’m insecure. 

And more, responding to a year of convos and a few really intense books and, in general, the disastrous nature of the racial and political temperature in America.  The fact that my kids are black and I’m white.  I’ve started seeing the make-up of the larger systems of power I live in and been seriously shell shocked in situations and in realization of things I do and work I create that perpetuates it all.  Sometimes being mad at myself for it taking so damn long to see this, but at the same time just wanting to continue to learn and dismantle.  And, dismantling…dismantling more systems of conservative christianity specific to the church and small group of christians I was surrounded by as I grew up.  How those systems have shaped my sexuality, my ability or inability to deal with real internal struggles, my humanitarian work, the roles and structure of my marriage, adoption.   

It kinda all comes down to feeling crazy heavy.  And also paralyzing.  In January, I took a break from social stuff again to figure out what was going on inside my psyche and what I really wanted to give my time to.  That’s when I felt motivated to start getting my work out there.  The work that is just sitting there staring back at me from behind a screen.  So I got excited and motivated to start selling prints.  Motivated to commit to valuing what I do.   To commit to being consistent.  And that’s a personal goal, something I struggle with and feel is connected to bigger insecurities.  So, I made this commitment and started selling The Boardwalk Series and got all into that and then decided it wasn’t what I wanted to give my time to.  And also got sidetracked by all this deeper stuff.  And I just changed my mind. 

Even more than that, I’ve been crazy frustrated with the digital process on all levels.  I’m pissed with the frantic, frenzied nature of shooting, the unsatisfying experience of files on devices, the instant need for output, the fake feeling of ink on paper, the fleeting nature of all of it.  I was bred on black and white film.  It is my first love and the one I am being drawn back into.  It is tangible and long lasting and I’m tethered to it.  There is mystery and accidents.  And I’m realizing that pull for me in this particular moment in time is not coincidental.  It mirrors internal processes.  A getting back to roots.  A healing.  There is fear in me associated with a need for permanence, the desire to not be forgotten.  Wanting for things to slow down.  There is the internal satisfaction of using my hands and my body and my brain to accomplish things.  The sensory satisfaction of the sounds and feels and smells of all things film. 

It’s a new beginning or an old beginning or a beginning again.  But, regardless, I am a beginner.  A beginner, but with enough muscle memory that I tingle when I start to get it right again, when I relax a little in the aspect of moving my camera and settings and focus and I start to see the world again.  I learned early, how to shoot with 35mm black and white film, how to process it in a darkroom and how to shoot my camera completely manually.  But nothing much beyond that.  I had 3 years of learning at the community college level, then just played with it.  And I was a really crappy shooter.  And saying that, I’m actually more excited about getting back to this at this point in my photography career.  I am a much better shooter.  Better at composition, better at getting myself where I need to make the shot, better at making changes in camera.  But, I don’t want to stay there, with just shooting 35mm.  I want to learn this shit.  Figure out what each film does and their personalities and the personalities of different cameras and lenses.  I want to know this.  Like really know this.  And fall back in love.

That being said, it is all a process.  And on some level, that is what ties me to it also.  The process.  I’m a believer in learning from process.  So, in desiring to get back into this and at the same time wanting to be consistent in showing work, I’m taking this train back.  Back to the archives.  Back to binders filled with black and white negatives.  I’ve been pouring over these negs and test prints and contact sheets, spreading them the length of my kitchen table late at night.  Engaging the world I lived in and the worlds I photographed.  I’m looking back at marks I made on contact sheets of images I liked then and laughing, because, quite honestly, most of them seriously suck.  I’m slowing down.  Knowing there is so much more intent and focus and attention to craft involved.  Less instantaneous validation, but more the validation from knowing that you put so much into something you loved and you were able to create something you take pride in.  And it is filling me up in ways that noone really even needs to know about.

So with that, I got out every film camera I own and am shooting with all the expired film I could find in boxes and bins and bags.  I really have nothing to show for myself at this point.  Except the archives.  To start sharing images that literally noone has ever seen.  Early practice of visual design elements.  Travels.  My nephews.  It’s a practice I need right now.  A process I want to enliven in myself.  Some images totally suck.  Some are ok.  Some are borderline good.  Some suck and I love them anyway.  Some could have been good, but I messed up.  But, I’m putting this stuff out there.  To engage a part of me that needs to be expressed, to stay consistent with continuing to see my processes as valuable and to give the opportunity for anyone who wants to to engage something in themselves too.

This work was shot on 35mm film black and white film, developed by me in the school lab or at home in my bathroom.  Obviously, these are digital scans, which is just how we have to roll right now.  I’m not printing these, so feeling ok about it.  I realize this is a pivot from where I was headed and adding a completely new dimension to anything anyone sees on my current social media platform.  But, pivoting is kind of normal for me (and ask anyone I’ve ever been in a relationship with, it is infuriating, also).  I change my mind hourly (hence the goal to stick with sharing work and be consistent with that).  And, I don’t exist in a compartmentalized life where everything fits nicely into Tupperware and stores like a puzzle in the fridge.  All the spaces of my life ooze into the other ones, so it feels really inconsistent all the time.  It is really inconsistent all the time.  And, my social presence on Instagram is really evidence of that. One day that means I’m playing play dough with my 5 year old, the next I’m climbing a mountain, the next day I’m taking pictures of myself naked and trying to figure out why I feel so sad all the time.  And now I’m adding some early film photography work to the mix. So be it.  It is what it is.  It’s all there kind of coexisting in the same spaces internally in me and in the same physical spaces a lot of the time, too. 

So, I realize it jumps around a lot.  And I’m ok with that.

My kid is black

I’ve never felt my son’s blackness like I did today.

School organized mother’s day luncheon.  Posh country club.  Manicured lawn.  Bleached-blonde women in derby hats dabbing at make-up with pressed white napkins.  Moms and boys.  Boys and moms.  Boys with bangs that blow in the wind.  Slouching.  Straightening.  Adjusting ill-fitting sports coats.

And I wanted to vomit.  I wanted to leave, make a break for it, sneak out the back gate.  I was broken open on the spot, staring around at everything going on as if in slow motion.  Sitting next to the son I have loved with all my heart for the past 12 years and knowing that he did not fit in…in that place where I, so obviously, did.  And it hit me like a kick-in-the-shins-doubled-over-holy-shit-wtf load of bricks.  

And in that moment, there was no way in hell you were gonna put this white mom on stage next to her black adopted son while he reads a letter to her in the microphone and have everyone whisper, ‘uh, how beautiful’ as if saying those words somehow solves racism for them.  As if you have no prejudice or don’t exist in a system of whiteness because you said that.  As if I don’t because I’m the one standing next to him or kissing his forehead at night.  

As if you/I/we wouldn’t clap for him on stage getting an athletic award and clutch our purses tightly passing him on the street later that same night.

And I froze in that.  I don’t know anything about what it feels like to be black.  I hear it come out of my kid.  I see it in the way he experiences situations like today.  Even a black kid being raised in a white community.  Or even more so because of that.  And I see these weird things in the faces of these women when they look at him, when they look at us.  And I feel that it’s my fault.  That, on some level, I brought this on him.  That I’ve created a space for him that stirs up more issues than it solves.   All white, upper class christian school where my kid has no choice but to stand out because of his race; where my kid has no choice but to feel like he has to prove himself as more than just another black kid who can play football.  And that’s not even going anywhere on the ‘transracial, international adoption’ front.  That’s an additional can of whoop ass I’m barely even touching on here. And this isn’t a pity party, tell me it’s not my fault type of thing. This is a slap in my own face to wake up. Awaken to the things I exist in.

I leaned over to him while the boy before us finished his love letter to his mom and said, ‘Perez, we can leave.  Can we leave?  I want to leave.’  And he leaned into me (knowing full well the power and reason behind my words) with, ‘Mom,  it’s ok.  I know how to do this.  I’ve been doing this for like, ever…and, also, these are my friends, remember?’

A Collective Groaning

Grief.  There is a deep sense of it.  An energy in the air enveloping each of my closest friends, myself, our country.  Lamenting losses on all fronts.  A collective groaning.

It rises up and breaks us down.  We are face down in the weeds wanting to disappear into them.  Our bodies ache.  Our eyes are swollen.  Our hands are clenched tightly in an eternal fist.  And the ground at our feet is wet because we cry so much.

Grief pushes in on all sides.  It is a pulsing, intertwined and complicated emotion with no seeming beginning or end.  Something that often doesn’t make sense in how it expresses itself to us or in us or how it flows out of us.

I grew up in a system that told me it shouldn’t be that way.  I grew up in a system that spewed out one liners about trust and God and will and prayer the instant someone got a phone call about cancer, or signed divorce papers or buried their child.  I grew up in a system that threw arms around a heap of a human in the midst of despair and said, ‘Just trust.  God has a plan for this’.  

I grew up in a system that expected struggle or painful feelings to demonstrate themselves a certain way or it wasn’t acceptable.  To continue to function and move forward.  To not fall off the deep end or ‘leave the faith’.  To acknowledge the blessings God was giving you in the chaos.  I grew up in a system that gave a timeline for despair; a week or two filled with casseroles and flowers and cards. Of obligatory “I’m praying for you’s”.   Grief was rated in tiers, death of a loved one being the only reason to truly feel terrible.

I grew up in a system that said it is my job as a christian to ‘comfort’ people.  And ‘comfort’ meant making people see that God was what mattered, not what was happening to them or their family, and that they should get out of their painful feelings as quickly as possible.  And if they couldn’t see the bigger picture outside those dark and painful feelings, than they weren’t really trusting God enough or at all.

I grew up in a system that used one liners about God to absolve ourselves from the responsibility of sitting in pain with people or to placate ourselves or remove ourselves from sitting in our own pain.  And at this point, the only words I have are

Stop that.  Just stop. 

Guatemala On My Mind Again (or still)

I have so many memories. So many stories. So many captivating things cluttered on my computer desktop and hidden in digital folders and files. So many ‘visual pinches’ that take me to another place altogether. My first trip to Guatemala was in 2013. Over the past 8 years, I have yet to shake the power of those trips. And I have yet to truly uncover something that represents the beauty and complexities of what was experienced over the course of my interaction with this country. So I keep searching. Keep excavating and uncovering. March always pulls at me for this reason.

So, here is, yet again, a tiny glimpse into what Antigua Guatemala in March looks like. The following blog is a repost from May 2015. It was from a blog series I started (and stopped repeatedly) called ‘Exposure Outtakes’ or ‘Photocrush Fridays’.

Gear: Nikon D600; Nikor 35mm f/1.4

Settings: ISO 200,  1/3200, f/2.2 

Year: 2015

What we experienced in the procession is something deeply traditional and hits at the heart of the cultural ritual and religion in Guatemala.  Every Sunday of lent the people in Antigua and surrounding areas of Guatemala participate in what we call The Procesion.  It’s similar to a giant parade, only the ‘floats’ are carried by people, not cars and they are made of solid wood with ornate statues on top.  These statues depict the scenes and circumstances surrounding the death of Jesus Christ and his journey on the road to where he was crucified.  It is a very deep and somber experience for many.  They sweat under the weight of the wood floats, symbolically experiencing the weight of the cross and the pain in which Jesus walked the road to his death.  Ironically, it is also a huge celebration day.  Vendors walk around with colorful clusters of balloons and food and drinks of all sorts are sold on every corner.  Colorful ‘carpets‘ made of sawdust decorate the cobblestone as a symbol of the thankfulness for the abundant provisions of God in people’s lives.  These ‘carpets‘ are incredibly ornate and are often decorated with gorgeous displays of fruit and flowers.  They  pave the way for the procession of floats.  It is a cultural experience not to be missed.

Getting There:  A guatemalan friend met us early in the morning at one of the old cathedrals.  He is (what we jokingly call) ‘famous’ in Antigua and surrounding areas for photographing The Procession.  He took some time to show us his work being displayed in the cathedral and give us a few pointers about shooting The Procession.  “Why the harness?” we all asked.  Because Nelo is awesome.  Because Nelo knows the most dynamic shots of the entire event are from above.  Because a good photographer (insert the name Nelo) figures out how to get where they need to be to make the picture.  Nelo uses that harness to hang from light poles, wrought iron window bars and anything else he needs to scale so that he can get out of the crowds of the grounded amateur photographers and make the shots that earn him his ‘famous’ moniker.  Check out his work here: www.nelomh.com.  We traipsed around in his footsteps for a little while walking up to the very beginning of The Procession and ended up completely separated from him for the rest of the day.  I kept looking up to see if I might actually see him flying from rooftop to rooftop on somebody’s clothes line.  We shot all morning until we were, as one participant put it, ‘hot and bothered’, took a break for theafternoon sun to pass by, and shot into the evening.  We were a little too early in the lenten season for the most dynamic of the processions, but it is always well worth it to be there at any point.

What this says: This says I have a massive fetish in shooting innocent young girls glowing in white (I have a similar shot from the 2013 Procession you can see on my Instagram feed). Color contrast is a great visual element and I am constantly drawn to it.  Although I have a few shots of this young girl with all different expressions, this one did the trick.  She is sweet and saintly and caught in some sort of private thought that gives the composition an air of contemplative passion.  The boy in the background is the exact opposite of the girl in the foreground.  Exactly what we needed.  This boy makes the shot, giving you a better understanding of what it might really be like to tag along with your dad for a few hours while he grunts under the weight of a 30ft solid wooden float in the midday heat on uneven cobblestone streets.  Without this kid, this shot would be utterly useless.

What this doesn’t say:  The Procession is crowded.  The type of crowded where you are rarely, in a 5 hour shooting session, not touching somebody else.  The type of crowded where you are in constant search of an escape route in case the hoards of people slinking up and down the maze of narrow, alley-like streets, decide to misbehave.  The type of crowded where there is no ‘going against the walking flow’ because there is literally no space for people to scoot over so you can squeeze by.

The type of crowded where you get your bag slashed open without even knowing it.  Yes.  That crowded.  And that bummed that the bag I’ve been toting daily for the past 4 years is no longer good for anything but taking up space in my coat closet.

[The following images are a selection from Visual Reportage Guatemala Workshop 2015]

Balboa Fun Zone

The Balboa Peninsula Fun Zone in Newport Beach isn’t our #1 pick for carnivalesque attractions. It might not even be in our top 5, honestly. But, it’s close to home and has the 3 requirements for an amusement park day trip: rides, sugar and Skeeball. Not to mention corndogs, ice cream, frozen bananas, iconic ‘balboa bars’, touristy trinket shops and Zoltar. And, also not to mention that it is a short 3 block walk to a long strip of sand, some salt water a pier and a wide paved walkway that stretches for 3 miles along the edge of the beach. It also happens to have a cool little car ferry that takes a maximum of 3 cars and floats you across the bay from the actual Balboa ‘island’ to the Balboa ‘peninsula’. (Yes, since the fun zone is technically on the peninsula, you can surely drive there and park in the parking lot behind the arcades. But, who wants to do that when you can ride a bike, walk, or drive your car directly onto a floating barge that overcharges you a one way fair for a 2 minute float). And despite it’s ‘cheap’ thrils and quirks and rundown arcade games, we absolutely love it. (True story, one of those arcade games was so broken, we put in a token and it was literally shooting out strings of tickets for nearly a minute and a half…kids scored 426 tickets from one token and no need to even play the game!). This has been our go-to getaway play zone since the kids were little. I have countless images with friends and family members crowded onto the ferry or riding a mechanical shark or scarfing down something, anything, sugary.

And the thing that gets me going every time, is the ride on that Big Eli #5 Ferris wheel. You hop on, amped up on ring-pops and pre-ride excitement, stretch that seatbelt across laps, drop that bar and away you go, slowly, backwards, for like 3 seconds. Then stop. Fill another cart or let someone off, then slowly backwards and stop. I have no clue how the operator knows who’s turn it is to get off and/or on or how many times anyone actually goes around. But, once everyone has emptied and been reloaded, it’s smooth sailing. It’s cables and cart rocking and the feel of gently rising through all of that to reach the top. You hit the crest of the wheel and feel that salty breeze run it’s fingers through your hair, looking right to the Pacific ocean, left to the bay dotted with boats and beach cottages.

And the sun warms your cheeks and in that moment, nothing else really seems to matter.

[The following gallery is a little snippet from a 17th birthday trip we did in 2019. Minus the behind the scenes shots of riding amok on beach cruisers through the alleys of Balboa island, this pretty much sums up the thrills]

The Boardwalk Series image “Vintage Ferris Wheel” was shot here at the Balboa Fun Zone in October 2013.

Open Edition

For those of you that might be wondering, what exactly is an OPEN EDITION print?  

An open edition print is a fine art print that has not been designated with a specific edition size, meaning the number of prints is not limited.  As opposed to limited edition prints that have been printed, signed and numbered in advance with a specific number of prints available, prints in an open edition are typically not numbered or signed and often printed on demand.

What does that mean for you?  This allows for more accessibility to prints.  Meaning, you don’t have to sleep on the sidewalk in a tent to be one of the first 3 people in line for these.  They are also available with multiple size options and price points to fit your space and your budget.

This print, however, is also a LIMITED RELEASE.  That means they are only available for a set period of time.  Once that time period is over, they are gone. This print is available March 23rd - April 6th 

“Vintage Ferris Wheel” was shot at the Balboa Peninsula Fun Zone in Newport Beach, CA.  Opened in 1936 this, 6 block area of kiddie rides, arcades, and carnival food is still entertaining locals and beach vacationers alike.

It is part of an ongoing personal project titled The Boardwalk Series

Sky Ride

This image, shot at the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk, highlights one of my favorite things at amusement parks, soaring above the mayhem as if in some kind of dream.  The feels of flying and swinging legs.  The childhood secrets told; the rush of sitting hip to hip with that boy crush.  

Carnivals stir up all sorts of yumminess inside me.  The noises, the lights, the screams the sticky concrete, the overpriced milk-bottle-knock-over-ballon-pop-grab-the-stuffed-animal-claw games, the ever present sugar infused pinball action of children scampering around with sheer excitement plastered on their faces.  The corndogs and cotton candy and saltwater taffy.  The nostalgia, the history, the playfulness the whimsy.  It all adds up into one giant “kid in a candy” store feeling.  I fell in love with these as a toddler, sitting tandem with my mother as we both held onto the glittering pole in front of us, gently undulating on a bedazzled carousel horse.  Amusement parks were a thing for my family, searching for carnivals and fairs and rides on every vacation we went on.  I frequently threw tantrums at the fact that I was too small for the rides my brother and sister went on, only to be instantly pacified by a bag of popcorn or cotton candy as a sat on a slatted wooded bench covered in gooey stickiness, watching my siblings scream their brains out.  

Among all the fairs and carnivals I have visited, the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk is probably one of the most iconic and nostalgic amusement parks on the California Coast.  Entertaining visitors since 1907, this seaside spectacle is home to California’s oldest roller coaster, The Giant Dipper, and houses the hand-carved Loof Carousel, one of only a handful of carousels that still have an operating ring dispenser.  As the inspiration for many songs and vintage snapshots, it is also served as the backdrop for a movie filmed in 1987, The Lost Boys, which cemented in me a definitive fear of all things vampire (but also stoked a creepy crush on Corey Feldman).

I started photographing all things fair and carnival related in 1998, when my dad handed down my grandfathers old Nikon 35mm film camera.  I’ve been adding to this project for the past 20 years.  

This image intentionally straddles the fence between fine art watercolor painting and photograph. Details are less sharp and figures blurred. Printed on 285gsm matte Hahnemüehle Torchon watercolor paper with archival pigment inks, giving it a linen texture and a fine art feel.

Unframed // Paper size 30 x 40in // Image size 24 x 34in // Limted Edition // $385

Contact me for purchase

ART

Mid-January, I took a much needed break from social media.  Nothing new.  Done it before. Will definitely do it again.  Sometimes it’s an escape from visual noise, sometimes an effort to distance myself from comparisons; to allow my easily-dinged-up-self esteem to regain some composure.  Sometimes it’s a realization that the whole thing is one giant façade we have given ourselves over to in a feeble attempt to feel validated; to be seen.  And, I fully participate in it and hate it all at the same time.  Like I’ve said before, I have yet to find a way to have a mature relationship with it.  Thus, a new hiatus commenced.

The result of this particular break was different and so important.  I felt free.  Free to focus without distraction.  Free to be productive.  Free to invest myself in things I care about, to check back into my kids, to exist fully and presently and realistically with all the things right in front of my face.  

To give energy to my own projects and lean into things that light me up. 

I started writing poetry again.  Reading obscure books.  Shooting images in film.  Distancing myself from mainstream anything to dig into the unique layers of myself.  To give effort and attention to the things that make me tick.  And in doing so, was reunited with a me that has been hidden under obligation and insecurities and heaps of everyones laundry.  An oft neglected soul, per se, that used to believe in herself.

It just so happened that this break coincided with putting together a yearbook page for my high school graduate.  Yes.  I know.  ‘He’s not old enough to graduate’, ‘He’s still a first grader in my mind’, ‘How does this happen’, ‘I. Just. Can’t’.  I know.  But, hey, it’s happening and will probably happen with your kids too, so, prepare.  I spent hours scouring hard drives and back up drives and old picture CD’s for images to fill his page with. The process of that brought me to tears plenty of times, yes, but also brought me to the realization, yet again, that I have a damn lot of images I love that most people have never seen.  Projects I’ve been adding to for close to 10 years.  They are deep and varied and cover the spectrum of abstract lines to serene landscapes and back again.  

And I’m really tired of them existing as digital cobwebs in the dark corner of my basement.  

And I’m also really tired of telling myself that they aren’t good enough.  That it can’t really be considered art because I’m not really an artist.  That I have no credibility.  That there are too many rules and guidelines and boxes to check off in order to price, promote and sell my work.  That, in reality, noone wants it anyway. 

That self talk makes me tired.  Makes us tired.  Makes us spend countless hours standing ourselves up to cardboard cutouts of people we idolize.  I’ve let specifics of printing and time and money and demand and massive insecurities bog me down.  I’ve let the voices telling me to figure it all out before I do anything to stop me from doing everything.  And I’m tired.

So, with a month under my belt of digging into the things I love, I’ve decided to shrug off all that bullshit and make some art.

I have a plan, but am also very ok with that plan changing many times.  I have images from projects I want to share, but am also very ok with offering people things they want to see.  I have a pricing objective and printing strategy, but am also very ok with that going up or down based on specific demand and images.  I don’t have it all figured out, don’t have an intriguing artist statement, don’t have a philosophy for why I do what I do.  I just have some cool work I want to share with you all.  And when it this all becomes not fun, I promised myself I would stop.  

So, that’s how we’re gonna roll this out.  I’m not opening up a shop or selling online at this point.  See this as an impromptu rotating art show that puts images out there to enliven the heart to the beauty of visual experience; for us to be moved, in any which way one needs to be. Specifics will change frequently, but here’s where they are right now:

• I’m starting with my favorite projects. I’ll shoot a preview out on social media of a selection of images from that project and give you a chance to weigh in on what you like, what you want to see.

• I’ll select 3 to 4 images from that project that I also love.

• I’ll print those as I see fit, specific to the vibe of each individual image. Some may be huge and printed on expensive fine art papers, others may be more in line with traditional photographic printing on archival museum grade photo papers.

• Each will be a limited edition run. Which means there are only a select number of images that will be printed. Each image will be signed and numbered. Most likely, these will be extremely limited runs, meaning no more than 10 images. Probably closer to 3-5. I’m not rolling off 100’s of cheap prints from CVS inkjet printers.

• Each print will cost a different amount. Pricing depends on size, paper, replicability, artist work etc. These are not mass produced and will be priced as such.

• I will drop a new image from previewed project every week until I close out that project. If you want to keep seeing more from that project or I didn’t release an image you really wanted, hit me up. I’m more than willing to morph on this stuff right now.

• Once prints are released, hit me up via social media ASAP. Once prints are sold out, they are gone for good. We’ll work out all the deets of payment, shipping, etc. at that time.

If all that is too wordy, or you just really don’t care about any of it and you just want to find an image you love for above your headboard, just stick with this:

I PRINT

YOU BUY

There are plenty of disclaimers about art being created for different reasons, about pricing things so as to be accessible, about shitty art vs good art and where we all fall on the spectrum; about art for experience or art for profit.  There are countless soapbox sermons about buying local and from independent artists who are feeding their families (or sending their kids to college…ahem) and not funneling our money through mega corporations that are treating employees unfairly and or filling the pockets of the the already rich who just keep getting richer; about perpetuation financial institutions and systems that oppress people.

I have a lot of views on a lot of that stuff.  We can hash it out later if you’re interested.  At this point, I want to print some art.  I want us to fill our houses with stuff that says something to us.  I want us to participate in the fulfillment that comes from creating, that comes from experiencing the depth of others and essentially some depth of ourselves through their creations. To be playful, to be imaginative, to swoon, to remember, to see beauty, to break boundaries, to engage globally, to feel.  

So dig into this stuff over the next couple months.  Show me some love in anyway you want or can.  Hit me up asking about my images you’ve seen or prints you’re interested in.  Remember, if it ain’t fun, I ain’t doing it anymore. So, let’s get this art thing started.

Conversations about butterflies.

As many of you know, it’s been an interesting season for me.  A lot of figuring and questioning.  A lot of demolition.  A lot of reframing; rebuilding.  A full steam ahead internal remodel with years of bathroom wallpaper being ripped out layer after ugly layer.  If you’ve ever ‘un-wallpapered’ something, well, you know it’s not the prettiest of activities and often not a one day job.  (And that metaphor will be expanded in a later blog.  For sure.) 

As many of you also may know, my mom and I haven’t always been super close.  Or close at all, for that matter.  A lot of this remodel has played itself out in our already strained relationship and caused more walls and boundaries and one sided conversations.  

BUT

She has recently reached out in ways that have been notable and thoughtful, sending texts of FB posts she thought were fitting or images she found on the web of inspiring words.  Recently she sent me something I am ever so grateful for.  Because it really does hit at the heart of what is happening in me.  A transformation.  A disruption.  A revolution of the spirit.

A death and rebirth.  And I totally love it.  

But, I can’t leave it there.  I can’t leave it at the pretty drawing accompanying the words of the woman emerging from a chrysalis.  Not because I am devaluing you, Mama, I’m not.  I am so blown away by the fact that you are paying attention to this and being thoughtful and intuitive and caring.  It has nothing to do with you or that, but only my ever-growing attention to my inability to paint struggle as real struggle.  Important attention has been drawn, recently to my all too common way of representing myself in the middle of a struggle, but framing it as something that is pretty and beautiful and full of light.  And I’ve been chewing on that and delving into that and in the midst of convo regarding those things in my writing, I got this image on my phone.

And I had to dig into it.  Because the beauty of those words do not accurately describe death and disruption and breakdown.  Because, really?  Do you know what actually happens inside a chrysalis? 

The internal process of dying and transformation is not something I would liken to ‘growing pains’.  Growing pains are that ache you feel in your legs in the middle of the night as a young kid.  This isn’t that.  This is a full on digestion form the inside out.  The solid mass of a caterpillars body, fat and plump, eating itself alive and rendering itself into a muddled mess of ‘undifferentiated cells’.  I mean, no wonder they cover that shit up with a silk cocoon.  Who wants to see that? 

Toward the end of the digestive cycle, the shiny silky cocoon turns dark and black and the butterfly ‘emerges’.  But even that is, too often, conveyed as beautiful.  That term ‘emerges’, in and of itself, conveys a positive and beautiful message.  But, what actually happens, is the butterfly works it’s ass off to crawl out of that thing.  It peels scales off it’s eyes and newly created proboscis and unfurls it’s wings, which are soft and limp and un-useful.  It hangs upside down for an undetermined amount of time.  Why?  Because in order to fly, it basically has to ‘bleed out’.  It has to pump it’s own life force out of it’s body to give strength and rigidity to it’s wings.

And, if I’m going to be honest, that is what we are seeing in me.  And what’s happening.  We’re not talking about the pretty butterfly, ok, we’re just not.  We all know she’s beautiful and colorful.  We all know she will spread her wings and fly.  But, the focus on that end completely downplays the struggle she goes through to get there, the ugliness of digesting oneself from the inside out, the arduous process and effort of actual transformation.

Looking back at a recent text thread with a friend.  We were talking openly about mental health and addiction and divorce and depression and total emotional messiness; essentially the human version of digesting oneself from the inside out. 

He said:

Being in the uncomfortable shit with someone else is a singular act of courageous love.  You can’t make it better.  You can rarely fix what is broken.  It’s hard.  It feels unproductive if you’re not the one hurting (“transforming”, “metamorphosizing”) And there is no predetermined time limit for done, which is daunting.

And me:

That is spot on.  So true.  Makes sense why we don’t do it more often.

In other words, makes sense why we would rather see ‘digestion from the inside out’ covered in a shiny silky cocoon rather than actually visually experience digestion from the inside out.  Makes sense why, when we are actually being eaten alive, we cover ourselves in a shiny cocoon.  Because it’s messy, it’s hard, it feels unproductive, there’s no time limit, we are reducing ourselves to ‘undifferentiated cells’.

As humans, we don’t always choose to see that.  We don’t always want to.  Like that image sent from my mom:  “No-one ever talks about this part…you know the part where you’re no longer a caterpillar and not yet a butterfly.”  We would often much rather just watch it spin a chrysalis all shiny and pretty, go do something else for two weeks, then reappear for the exciting finale of fluttering wings and freedom to fly away.  

And maybe that’s better for some of us.  Maybe the mess is too much, too daunting, too dark, too down.  We’ve seen it in our family members, our friends, our country.  Maybe the struggles right now are so overarching and so overpowering that what we want is the pick me up.  The quick fix.  Maybe what we just need is a ray of light to help us keep stepping forward in the muck of a pandemic and racism and corruption and a disheveled mess of a nation or a separation or the death of a loved one or an incarceration or not being able to pay rent.  Maybe we just want to see the damn butterfly spread her wings and fly so that we can smile for a minute.  And that is 100% ok.

And for some of us, maybe not.  Maybe some of us want to sit in that struggle.  Peer into the chrysalis.  See the real version of change.  Maybe you want to know how it feels or what it looks like to completely strip down to the the rawest form.  To rid ourselves of the superfluous and shallow and get down to real transformation.  Maybe there is comfort and camaraderie in watching that happen in someone else’s life, too.  Maybe that resonates with you.

These words and blogs might come across a little different for now.  A little rough.  A little painful.  More gritty, ugly.  Less ‘pretty Christmas package tied up with a silver bow’ more ‘watching a caterpillar digest itself’.  Like the real ache of rawness and change.  I don’t know where you’re at.  And I don’t really know where I am either.  But, I know I’m committed to the process.  

“All you know is that every fiber of your being is calling for transformation.  For disruption.  For a revolution of the spirit.  So surrender.  Breakdown.  This isn’t the dying of you.  This is the dying of who you once were.”

Leavin' 2020 be like...

7 days ago I stood with a friend, bundled in sweats and a jacket, on the rocky shore of a mountain lake, contemplating my decision to dip, yet again, in this ice cold body of water.  The birthday dip is full of ritual and meaning and deep renewal for myself.  The New Year’s day dip, well, historically, has just been more to have something to do on New Year’s Day other than sit around and watch football.  And, more frequently than not, it’s been in the Pacific ocean, which is markedly warmer than Donner Lake.  So, in full disclosure, taking into account the glaring white snow of the surrounding shore and mountains, this dip seemed far from important, even farther from necessary and just damn cold.

But, we were there, with swimsuits under coats, motivated by the presence of the other and encouraged by whiskey.  The goal was clear, undress, get in, dunk, get out and redress.  All with as much speed as possible to avoid the potential ‘icing over’ of eyebrows and strands of hair and the pain of frozen toes.  

But, well, that isn’t what happened.  You see, this stretch of lake is littered with rocks and it’s a bit of an effort to maneuver through them to get to slightly sandier ground.  So despite the desire to do this all seamlessly and quickly, we weren’t able to.  Three steps into the water, we were tripping and slipping and haphazardly crawling into deeper water.   Which got us wetter than we had imagined during the entrance and exacerbated the feelings of frozenness creeping up our skin.  The exit was no different.  This time fully wet and already frozen, we tripped and slipped and crawled our way out.  And we laughed at the ungracefulness of it all and we laughed at the awkwardness of the entry and exit and we stood on the shore, our bodies steaming, wondering why we do stupid stuff like this.

I shot him a text the next day with this photo and the caption, ‘Leavin’ 2020 be like…crawlin’.  Most ungraceful exit we could have imagined’.  And though funny, that idea continued to ruminate in me.  Because what I wanted was something better.  What I imagined that dip would do to me internally, didn’t.  I wanted to come out a new person.  But, the reality is, just because I freeze my ass off on the first day of the year doesn’t mean everything else goes away.  It doesn’t mean I am in any different place moving into the new year than I was leaving the old one.  I crawled out of 2020 and crawled into 2021 and no amount of resolutions are going to change the fact that I’m still on my hands and knees, tripping and slipping up the shore.

And I can’t blame that on a calendar year.  I just can’t.  It isn’t 2020’s fault that I’m feeling depressed.  It isn’t 2020’s fault that I’m unhappy with my spouse, don’t have a consistent form of income and am pulling away from all my friends.  It isn’t 2020's fault that I have neglected my son to the point where he makes comments like, ‘you only parent when it’s convenient for you’.  It isn’t 2020’s fault that I called my 15 year old daughter a bitch in front of my 5 year old.  Let me tell you.  That is my fault.  Mine.  And let me also tell you, that is not a good parenting strategy.  That is not a good life strategy.  That is no strategy at all.  That is straight up emotional reaction to rejection and accusations and blame and misunderstandings and complaints and ungratefulness and selfishness and hurt.  It is reacting to the reality that I have neglected to care for things in my life that need care.

And I’m deeply sad about that.  And no amount of freezing cold water can numb those feelings.  And the feel-good pulses of a new year can’t distract me from the recognition of where I actually still am…crawlin’.

A Winter Solstice

It’s after midnight.  I’ve just returned back from a foray on a dock by the light of the stars and it was incredible.  Sound sexual?  It wasn’t, literally.  I was alone with a thick jacket and a blanket.  But, from my conservative Christian background, an experience with the cosmos should never be sexual.  Actually, nothing should ever be sexual, especially an experience with the cosmos.  And that is for another blog all together.  Or possibly only for particular personal conversations that are willing to break open the box…and/or something that ‘should’ never be said in public.  Thus saith the Lord.

Needless to say, I’m flirting with the cosmos and today is the winter solstice.  Or yesterday was at 2:02am PST.  Not sure how to actually gauge the event, but the winter solstice marks the shortest day and the longest night of the year.  It holds power enough to engage celebrations and rituals in multiple different countries and cultures throughout history.  It is often touted as the ‘death and rebirth of the sun’ and excites the multitudes of humanity for it’s leaning into warmth and light and longer days; a turning point in the year moving into the direction of more sunlight.   

But, let’s not forget.  The winter solstice pays tribute to the darkness.  It is a time of rest and reflection and acknowledgement and recognition of our own personal darkness.  And the best I can do, despite my desire to make sense of this all and the power it has shown me recently, is to relay an impromptu conversation between a friend and myself:

And in the same breath and in the same couple hours of conversation, I have another friend who is potentially sitting there reading this and saying, WTActualF.  You are full of total bullshit.  Of course you make it sound bright with a tinge of darkness. Because…“You are afraid of darkness”.  You make that pseudo darkness sound good, but, when push comes to shove, you feel like it’s necessary to pierce that darkness with rays of light.  You cannot simply exist in your own darkness.  Your words seduce the masses, but it’s not what you really need, not what will make you move in the direction you ‘should’ be going. 

And, the truth is, it’s both.  And the other truth is, they are both probably pissed I’m sharing this.  And that is the beauty of a winter solstice and also the beauty of pain in the ass friends.  They are there to aid you in the search for depth and create a space for you to explore light and dark in the exact same instant.  And it is the beauty of contradiction.  It is the beauty of complexity.  It is the big giant mystery of existing as a human and experiencing light and dark things at the same time..

It is Winter Solstice without ritual and without proper conduct.

It is allowing the wonder of a cosmic experience infiltrate and influence your psyche to whatever degree it might.  With the power it was created to have.

Decisions do not need to be made.  Light does not need to be sought after.  It is a chance to exist in the longest physical darkness of the year and pay homage to that experience. 

Out of Focus

I got glasses in the 4th grade…lavender ones, in a cream-colored, soft leather case with a panda bear on it.  I hated them.  Not because they were ugly (which they were), not because they magnified my eyeballs (which they did), and not even because I was now one of only 2 kids in my class who had to always sit up front AND put on glasses for the board (which I was).  I hated them because I needed them.  I hated them because it was a very tangible signal to me that I couldn’t see well, that I couldn’t focus, that nothing was clear or sharp or precise.  On a deeper level, I hated them because they meant I wasn’t normal.  That something was wrong with me.

As I grew through my elementary years and into adolescence, so did my visual struggles.  I strained to see everything, all the time.  Even with glasses I was constantly squinting through the lenses, trying to make everything sharper, trying to get something in focus.  I had appointments every 3 months with my eye doctor, only to be told that, yes, indeed, I needed another new prescription.  I was terrified it was just going to keep getting worse; terrified that eventually there would be no tangible help.   I was destined to live in a blurred, muddled daze squinting my way through life just to get something in focus.

That fear wasn’t too far off.  In terms of my actual vision, well, the decline flattened out my sophomore year in college at 20/300…which, in layman’s terms, is damn near blind.  In regards to the struggle for focus, well, that is faced daily.  I have focusing issues.

It’s 2013, I’m in sitting in the dimly lit backroom of a cafe in Antigua Guatemala, the table in front of me littered with Gallo beer bottle caps and empty shot glasses and the melted remains of anything ‘on the rocks’.  Strewn between those remnants are thousands upon thousands of dollars of tech gear.  Cameras and lenses and computers and voice recorders and mobile phones and external hard drives.  At 11:42pm, we are still in full critique mode.  We’ve been at it since 7pm.  And no sooner do I pull up my edit for the evening then we start in on my focusing issue.  ‘Zoom in.  Is she sharp?  No?  Toss it.’  ‘Give me a detail.  Where’s your focus?  Is there any?  It’s all soft.  No good.’ ‘Would’ve been something if even just his eyes were clear.  But, nah.  Get rid of it.’  Not only did this point out the fact that technically, I was totally sucking, but also, that here I was at my first ever photography workshop and I was reduced to the insecure 9yr old sitting in the eye doctors office, frustrated that I couldn’t focus, that I was squinting to make sense of things, that I wasn’t measuring up.  That even through long hot sweaty days of pushing through immense crowds in dirty streets and working for hours to make images, I just couldn’t figure out how to make anything clear.  I may or may not have cried at that table.  And I may or may not have cried many more times on that trip.   And I may or may not have made the best, most trusted and respected photography colleagues and friends of my lifetime (and in all fairness to them, they don’t pick me apart so much anymore).  But, needless to say, on one level, I went home with a little voice in my ear saying you need to figure out how to focus properly or it’s no good.  Toss it.

It’s 2015, I’m 5 weeks post partum and standing in the cereal aisle of the grocery store alone.  My teens are at home with the newborn and my husband is out of the country.  I have a cart.  It’s empty, even though I have been here for 15 minutes already and have been in every aisle…twice.  No, I didn’t come here just to get away from my children (which is something I have done…lie that you need to make a quick grocery run just so you can walk around in a public place looking normal for 15 minutes without any children attached to you).  No.  I came here because we desperately needed groceries.  And, like nearly every other grocery trip I’ve been on for the past 5 weeks and will be on for the next 47, I can’t seem to figure out what I’m actually doing here, in this aisle, in this store.  My eyes are scanning the countless cereal boxes in front of me, but my brain is a complete pinball machine.  I’m bouncing rapidly from ‘did I see milk in the fridge’ to ‘when did my mom say she was coming over’ to ‘why is my hair still in a ponytail’ to ‘what size nails am I supposed to buy for the new wood flooring’ to ‘damnit, did I even ask my father-in-law for the air compressor’ to ‘is my hair actually in a ponytail’ to ‘when is that birthday party again’ to ‘if he fails 7th grade math what are his options’ to ‘is my hair even long enough for a ponytail’ until I’m literally startled by the text vibration of my phone in my back pocket.  ‘Mom.  She’s screaming.  Hurry up.’  Which is the same thing as saying, ‘Snap out of it.  Get it together right now and focus.  You’re failing.  People need you.’  Groceries are haphazardly flung into the cart.  I check out, drive home, throw bags on the kitchen counter and haul the baby upstairs for her 5 millionth feeding of the day.  Less than 2 minutes pass and footsteps follow me up the wooden stairs and into my bedroom.  ‘Mom.  What are we actually having for dinner? I’m kinda hungry and I don’t see anything in those bags that makes sense to eat for a meal.’  And, I’m no longer the grown 36 year old mom in a comfy chair nursing my infant.  I’m back in that eye doctor chair, looking through that oversized metal glasses contraption.  ‘Can you see through this…option 1 or 2.  1. 2. 1. 2.’  No.  Nothing.  Neither.  Is it broken?  Are those my only options?    

It’s 2020 and I’m reviewing images from a late late night of shooting.  

Backstory. I’ve recently started some self portrait work.  A literary and photographic mash up digging into myself far deeper than I’ve ever wanted to.  It may possibly be only for myself.  It may possibly be seen by others at some point. I don’t know.  It’s been years in the making and may very well continue to be.  I’ve been hesitant to start shooting for this because, well, you can probably see where I’m going with this.  Focus.  Not just literally, but intellectually, emotionally.  Not sure where I want to go with it or what I want to say.  Not sure exactly how to create the images.  However, a spur of the moment nudge of energy, a pull, led me to my bathroom floor with a camera and a small light a few weeks ago and I’ve been inspired to keep working on images ever since.  

So, it’s 2020 and I’m reviewing images from a late late night of shooting.  Photographing oneself is interesting, to say the least at this point, and my focusing issue has not made it any easier. After loading images and giving them a quick once over, I slam my computer shut, repeatedly cuss and go straight to bed.  Those images are trash.  30 frames of good light and good shadows and good magic…and all blurry.  Every. Last. One.  Damn it.

And, I’ve been kicking myself in the shins for the past two weeks because of it.  Because I can’t reshoot that.  It’s a wash.  I fucked up.  I lost it.  My inability to focus just cost me something important, yet again.  And, in those words, in that condescendence, I realized something far more important.  Metaphorically, physically, professionally, emotionally.  Every which way, I’ve struggled to focus.  Over and over and over and over again in my life I have chased myself around in the fog.  Thinking the only way out is for it to lift, for my focus to narrow in, for clarity, for sharpness, for a better prescription. Believing that living in a daily blur is no way to live at all.  That if things don’t clear up, then toss them.  Blurriness is best thrown out.

I realized the power that needs to come from that is not, in fact, the making of crystal clear and sharp portraits that are technically magnificent and masterfully curated.  It is not the drive and motivation and hardwork to squint tighter to make things more clear. What needs to come from that (and what continually needs to come from this whole experience)  is the ability to see myself in the absence of clarity.  To exist and move and feel and accept who I am in the midst of the fog, the haze, the motion, the blur, the ‘off-ness’, the things unclear.  And, whether those images make the final cut or not, or even if there is a final cut, they will not be deleted. 

I will no longer extract the ‘out of focus’ parts from the larger narrative of my life.  Being out of focus doesn’t mean those parts are any less potent, less beautiful, less worthy.

Being out of focus doesn’t mean I am any less potent, less beautiful, less worthy.  

Never enough...always too much

What she does is never enough.  

You never wake me up on time, never let me go anywhere, never buy me what I need, never see it my way.  Never wash my clothes, never pick me up in the right spot, never cook what I like.  You never make enough money or wash enough dishes or buy enough junk food.  Never let me stay up late or watch scary movies or read risqué novels.  You never make time for me, never tuck me in.  You never let me say what I want.  

Who she is is always too much.

You’re always too selfish, too emotional, too loud.  Too unpredictable, too impulsive.  You are always too passionate, too protective, too opinionated.  You push too many boundaries and ask too many questions.  Too judgemental, too jealous, too internal.  Too fearful, too antsy, too anxious,

too focused on perfection

too controlling

too concerned about what others think about you.

If it ain't broke...

Disclaimer: This is a repost. I posted this August 10th and took it down after less than 3 hrs. Because, maybe I wasn’t ready to be that open. Maybe you weren’t ready. Maybe it’s more that the whole idea of us being broken and weak makes us uncomfortable and we feel like we have to fix it.

And maybe the point is just that. Learning how to realize our own brokenness. Learning how to exist in being uncomfortable because there is something to be learned from it. From me. From you. From us.

It was the summer where everything broke.  Air conditioning and car parts, toilet seats and toilet scrubbers.  Social stigmas, etiquette and early morning stretching routines.  Rules about where to go and what to do and what to wear.  Commitments, connections, collarbones.   Hammocks, hair brained ideas, tree branches, trust.  Boundaries.  Wine bottles, wine glasses and others full of whiskey.  Bonds.  Systems.  Expectations.  Assumptions.

River rafting paddles, parking rules and doorknobs. Lightbulbs, broom handles, bathing suit ties.  Coffee makers, coffee mugs, camera lenses, diets, waistband buttons and opinions on body image.  Friendships, phones, backpack straps, soles of boots, necklace clasps, watch bands, ponytail holders.  Promises.  Inflatable flamingos and those air mattresses with the thousand cup holders.  

It all broke.  It was one long run on sentence of broken things; in my house, in my neighbors houses, in my friends, in my kids, in our country. In me.

If you know me at all, you know the past 5 years have been a slow motion version of things breaking, the day Norah was born, acting as the catalyst of my ‘great undoing’.  Suffice it to say, I’m not always calm and collected when things break.  I tantrum like a little kid.  I cry.  I panic.  I stomp my feet.  I slam doors.  I shout.  I leave.  I drive away with all the windows rolled down letting the wind make as much noise as it wants.  I wander.  I drink.  I don’t shower or I take 5 showers a day.  

I sit on docks and stare into mountains for hours.  I run.  I sweat.  I eat all the sugar I can find including quarts of ice cream and spoonfuls of brown sugar.  I binge on Doritos and Oreos and Cap’n Crunch and leftover Halloween candy.

I defend myself incessantly.  I make excuses.  I insult other people and make bad choices.  I am irrational and irresponsible.

And, none of that fits in the box I need it to to make myself feel good, or to make you feel good, or to make any of it look good or to make sense so that we can all say everything is fine and fits into our version of what brokenness should look like and we can all be ok and move on. 

No.  In fact, the box that that supposedly fits into?  Well, it broke, too.

I, then, turn the house upside down looking for the gorilla glue to stick it all back together somehow.  Or the packing tape to at least tape up the bottom so it doesn’t all catastrophically fall out when I try to lift it again. 

But, when a summer hits me with everything breaking at once, I drop the pieces I have left, lift up my hands and realize, some broken things stay broken.

Some broken things don’t need to be fixed.  

They need to be swept up and thrown out.

Their absence creates space. 

And space precedes potential. 

Vol. iii. Half Dome

For the past 3 weeks I’ve been galavanting with the littlest.  The following blogs are tiny glimpses into that journey.

When a lifer of a friend says she’s got permits to hike half dome, you ask if you can go. When she says yes, you rearrange everything you can and find kid care for your 5 yr old. Thanks, Ma, for taking in the little so we could do this. Totally worth it.

[More words and ‘Lessons Learned from hiking Half Dome Twice’ coming soon]

Vol. ii. The Coast (a different one)

I’ve said this once (wait, I’ve said this like way more than once), but I’ll say it again.  Get your kids outside.  They are better off for it in so many ways.  And you, most likely will be, too. 

At the start of our Oregon trip, The Nugget and I did a quick camping overnight on the beach in Northern California.  After a 7.5 hr drive, we rambled down a curvy, skinny gravel road in the thick of redwoods opening up onto a wide and untouched stretch of beach.  Huge driftwood trees lay bleached and silent on the sand while wind whipped at the water.  

I’ve been here before.  This beach, yes, but even more so in this inner space.  When everything feels tight and cramped and incapable of fitting in the box it ‘should’ go in.  When the voices around you are the voices guiding you, telling you where to go and what to do.  When your insides feel raw from all the scrambling and scratching and you’re exhausted from chasing down things that don’t exist.  Yes, I’ve been here before.

So, it comes as no surprise that the second those trees thinned and the sunlight streamed into our car windows, I rolled them down.  Breathed.  A big, deep, salty inhale.  A long, emptying exhale.  Beaches were made for this kind of thing, y’all.  For breathing.  For being.  For scampering and spinning and running and shouting and screaming at and emptying and searching and learning and feeling small and being held and filling you up.

You couldn’t have picked a better beach for this.  Or a better place to pitch a tent for a night.  My Nugget and I have a rhythm, now, which is no rhythm at all except freedom to be in nature and enjoy each other.  We set up camp, munched on ramen, played UNO by lantern light, talked like friends, read stories to the light of our headlamps and slept cuddled next to each other in sleeping bags.  We’ve had plenty of camping drama over the years, but this trip held none of it.  And we both went to bed with smiles on our faces, knowing that in the morning, we would search for fairies and gnomes in ‘the canyon of magic’.

Fern Canyon is more well known than I would like it to be, but that fact alone doesn’t negate it’s magic.  Soaring walls covered in countless types of ferns follow a stream deep into a gash of coastal cliff.  This is literally, where fairies live.  Lush and wet and green and wild.  

This is stream jumping and rock balancing and fallen tree climbing.  This is banana slugs and wet shoes and slip sliding over muddy logs.  This is hours of play and hours of smiles.  

And the beginning to an unwinding of tethers; a loosening of a stifling grip; magic you don’t know you need until it starts to work something out in you.

Vol. i. The Coast

For the past 3 weeks I’ve been galavanting with the littlest.  The following blogs are tiny glimpses into that journey.

It’s an amazing thing when you find yourself surrounded by a family you are so comfortable with it’s as if you are one of their own.  Where you can cook and do the dishes and rifle through the fridge for leftovers.  Where you can wash their kids underwear with yours and the dogs don’t sniff your crack anymore.  Where you can stay up late watching HGTV and they can go to bed early with exhaustion from long days at work.

Where axe throwing and slack lining and night time glow trampoline parties are the norm. 

Where you pick tomatoes in the rain.  

I’m lucky.  Lucky to have friends like that.  Lucky to have shared meals, campfires, dirty diapers, nights on the couch, prayers, emergency room visits, run ins with park rangers, nerf weapon fights, late night rounds of whiskey, beach walks, baptisms, birthday parties, secrets, bad haircuts and countless amounts of tears and laughter.  I’m lucky to call these people friends.

And as much time as we have spent together, I have yet to visit them in their new-to-some-old-to-others home.  They moved to San Diego with us 15 years ago.  And we lived a good long chunk of life together.  But, 2 years ago, the moved to Oregon, 2 blocks away from where the feminine half of this unit grew up.  I have seen them countless times in the past two years, some in San Diego, some in Truckee.  But I have yet to see them in their town; their new hood.  With the loss of my Aunt’s house and a 98 year old grandmother all within 4 hrs of each other, it was past time for an Oregon road trip. 

I had it in mind to spend 2 nights with them.  We spent 4.  And I couldn’t be happier about that.  While she worked (unfortunately), I stole Melissa’s husband and kids and snuck away to the coast for a day.  It sounds more inappropriate than it was, believe me.  One of the cool things about this family is that literally any match up of people can hang out and nothing feels awkward.  We played rowdy games in the car and headed 2 hours west to Tilamook, OR.  It was no one’s fault but our own, (and the fact that the Tilamook creamery has nothing but dairy products) that we shoved our guts full of cheese curds and grilled cheese and Mac n cheese and continued on to a coastal hideaway of a beach none of us had ever been to.

The Oregon coast is so beautiful.  So.  Beautiful.  We hiked down a lush trail from the parking lot, descending out of the fog and onto a wide expanse of beach flanked with cliffs covered in trees that grew right down to the sand, caves, waterfalls and a stream ending it’s journey straight into the sea.  Pants were instantly rolled up and we flung ourselves into the knee deep whitewash.  The sun peeked through the fog intermittently and we scampered around finding nooks and crannies of interest and playing with reckless abandon.

Abandon.  Letting go.  Exhaling.  And for the first time, in a long time, I was inspired by the revelation of the simple beauty of that feeling.  Existing in light and fog and expanses of sand.  Of children full of wonder and adventure.  Of time that doesn’t need to be kept. 

[And, yes, we played with bull whip seaweed nonstop]

[And also, yes, we carried it a mile up the trail and put it in the car]

[And also, yes, we brought it on a 10hr drive in a garbage bag in the trunk back to my parents house in Reno]