Change and flux and worry

It's that point in the year where it feels like everything is up in the air. It's the end of August, which means back to school mainly, which is like some kind of frenzy in most of the country. With no kids in the house and nobody starting college for the first time (although our daughter is going to a new college this year), I swear, the frenzy is just annoying. Maybe I'm a little wistful about it, though. I do miss my kids.

I had a plan to be back at the cottage for about two weeks, only the plan may change this week. There is the flux, the uncertainty, the winging it. My kid is sick, and there's not much that feels worse than being away from your kid, no matter his age, when he's hurting. Worry from afar feels worse than worry while laying eyes on the person you're worried about.

The first time my daughter went away to camp, I think she was in sixth grade, I likened it to walking around with one or two of my limbs removed. It's foreign, disorienting; but good practice for when they step into the world on their own. But here you are parenting away and making all choices and decisions for your young offspring, and then boom, almost overnight they are grown and on their own, doing all that for themselves and there you are without your limbs. And you sort out how to adjust.

I don't know if this image conveys what I'm writing about, but my limbs are still attached (that's good) and I am in the place (cottage) I love best. But part of me is sitting at my son's bedside, helping his sister care for him, and waiting to hear what the next step is before I rush home.

Where I Come From

 

Tomorrow, August 26th, marks three years since my dad died. I miss him all the time, but it's getting easier to think about him without instantly getting sad. I can get look around and see everything that reminds me of him and it makes me smile. 

For instance, my dad loved tinkering around in the garage. Both at his home and at the cottage up north. He would organize his things, rearrange whatever he felt needed rearranging that day, work on projects. If we ever needed to find him, the garage would generally be the first place we'd look. 

He was also something of a collector. Antiques, tools, boxes, and his favorite collectible; books. The walls in the garage up north are lined with shelves covered in books. As anyone who knew my dad can tell you, he was an avid reader. Books. Magazines. Newspapers. If it had words on it my dad would read it. I learned a love of reading from him, one of my favorite photos is of me as a baby in his lap and he's reading me a book.

I don't make the time to read as often these days, and it's something I'd like to remedy. Today I went out into my dad's garage and I looked at some of his books. I picked one off the shelf and held it and wondered if my dad had read this particular one. He probably did. 

There are many ways in which I am similar to my father. A tendency toward drama, a need to travel, loyalty towards my family and friends, and the love of a good story. I've been missing the feel of a book in my hands. It's time to bring that back into my life. 

I think my dad would like that.  

What's in a name?

...that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet...

Or something close to that, from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. A quote I always knew, long before I read the play in high school English, because of my dad's love of the theater. And "a rose is a rose is a rose," attributed to Gertrude Stein. Another nod to my father on that one. But who you are and pride in your name was something my dad fought for and tried to instill in my brother and me, in addition to and outside of artistic implication. Our last name was a gift, essentially, and we were to honor it as such.

Of course as a kid none of that made any sense. I continually embarrassed my dad (a teacher in the pubic school system I attended) and failed his name on so many accounts. I enjoyed having my name associated with trouble (it was fun). Until I started to understand it, and then I became as fiercely protective of my last name as my father has been.

My first name took longer to like, let alone be something I felt protective over. The name "Lisa" always felt so boring. I knew plenty of Lisa's growing up, and none were particularly exotic. I liked names like Roxanne, Angela, and Poppy. Those sounded like adventurous girls who did interesting things! Lisa sounded like the girl next door who never did anything. It didn't help that I had to go to speech therapy in grade school (a fate worse than death, being called out of class each day in second grade to go to the speech therapist's office) to learn how to say "s" so that it didn't sound like "th."

Over the last decade, though, I've felt a shift. I actually like my name now. L's sound sumptuous, and I've mostly mastered the "s" sound (except when I'm tired) and can even make it whistle a little bit when I want. I love a cursive L, too, and the opportunity to finish my written name off with that dot above the i is a bonus. I like how my name sounds, how it looks when written, and how certain people say it. I like that maybe I am just a little bit responsible for making my name seem less like the girl next door and more like the girl who might persuade you into taking the adventure of your life.

My dad is right. We are our names. Best to fall in love with our names (and ourselves) rather than fight them.

At Peace?

What I see when I look at this photo.

Calm

Rest

Peace

I placed the sun right between my eyes. The Third Eye. The Sixth Chakra.
The center of intuition. A place that will guide me to inner knowledge. If I let it.

But instead I am feeling stuck and full of doubt. I've experienced a loss. Without getting into great detail, a close friend and I have parted ways. I am sad about it. I am grieving. But I also know it is for the best. In the long run,  I will grow from this. They will grow from this. My inner wisdom tells me this is so.

I was going to take some photos of myself during a particular bad patch of grieving, but that felt wrong. I want to focus on healing and what that means to me right now.

It means letting go of attachments. It means letting the grief come but knowing that it will begin to lessen in time. It means finding strength and honesty in myself. It means not allowing regret to cloud my vision. It means asking for help from my community and loved ones. It means remembering who I truly am, not what they told me I was. Not what anyone tells me I am.

So I close my eyes and I allow myself to really see. See that light and power and wisdom that is me, even when I feel like I am an aimless wanderer who cannot control her emotions. The path I am on may not be straight and perfect, but I'm still on it. Falling in holes but climbing out and trying again.

Always trying again.

Invasive thoughts

I feel like I'm constantly reminded of my faults this summer. I'm flaky. I'm careless. I'm messy. I'm self-absorbed. I'm wishy-washy. I'm not good enough. I'd be a better (person, mom, friend, etc.) if I just (fill in the blank). Invasive thoughts.

I went with my thoughts about all my faults to sit in a little patch of meadow with something else that is invasive. These purple flowers (which I've incorrectly called purple thistle) are spotted knapweed, an invasive plant that crowds out native species. The knapweed is prolific here, but there are also some tufts of fleabane, a few hardy Queen Anne's lace, and some stalky mullein hanging around in here, too. The native plants are putting up a good fight.

This knapweed is prickly, but it's also pretty. It creates a sea of purple that I think is beautiful. And although it's invasive, the monarch butterflies seem to love it. It can't be all bad, right?

Maybe reminding myself of my faults isn't all bad, either. Maybe finding a way to look at some of them in a different way is beneficial? Or, reminding myself of them keeps me working to move past some of the pricklier ones?

I don't know. But I'll keep working on it. For now, I'm going to try to stop beating myself up about everything that's wrong with me and work on letting the good thoughts take root.

Aside from that, I've got a little catch-up to do this month here--I missed a few weeks.

Dog days

It's such a common phrase (dog days of summer) that I wanted to look it up to make sure I was using it correctly, and it turns out it's an astrological reference rather than having anything to do with dogs or even really with heat, although it corresponds to the hottest days of high summer. But on this particular day it was too hot to do much of anything, so I parked it on the couch for a moment and thought it might make for an appropriate image and reference to that phrase, which turns out to not mean what I thought it meant.

And lots of things don't mean what I think they mean.

For example, I'll admit I'm still licking my wounds (ha! accidental dog reference) over my little blog fiasco, wherein I accidentally wiped out my Google account, thus deleting two whole (different) blogs and my images on this one. It shook me up more than I expected. I whined about it, a lot. I took to Facebook to proclaim my shock. A wise writer I know responded with something that's been knocking about in my head since: "Kill your darlings," he wrote, "and then make more."

Wow. Bam. Pow.

And then, yes. YES.

I wrote some good stuff (some bad, too), and it's gone and it's not coming back. But I'm not out of ideas or creative juice. I can formulate words into sentences that will be good again. Hell, maybe even better. I can keep learning and taking pictures. And I will probably lose more writing and photos and it's still going to be okay, because I can make more.

Until I'm blind, or my fingers fall off, or something else prevents me from shooting and writing, I can make more of this stuff. More good stuff, more bad stuff, more stuff in the process of creating for the sake of creating. "In the process of creating for the sake of creating." I want to live in these words.

Even lounging on the couch in the indescribably delicious heat of the late afternoon sun (or what most call the dog days of summer), I want to live in those words.

I am a Photographer

Sometimes people will ask me what I do. In other words, what is my job? How do I make a living? How do I contribute to society?

My answer varies depending on the situation.

I'm a wife and stay at home mom. 

I crochet and make cute little things that I try to sell. 

I belong to a beautiful circle of women who facilitate empowering work for other women. 

Lately I've added one more answer. 

I'm a photographer. 

I used to be afraid to make this declaration. As if I had to meet certain criteria to be allowed into this exclusive club. Like I have to have won awards, or gotten a degree, or sold my work, had a gallery showing.

But I don't think that anymore. 

I take pictures. Pretty darn good pictures. I love composing a shot, scouting out places to shoot. Editing and processing my work. I love discussing photography with others who share my passion. I find the challenge of taking a good photograph exciting and meaningful.  

That makes me a photographer. 

A pretty darn good photographer.