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Showing posts from 2013

Raw and Exposed

Being me is hard.  I am not merely one person with one simple set of rules, opinions, visions, or way of being.  I am complex, I contain multitudes of feeling and I find myself staring inside at the deepest parts of me sometimes, wishing I could pull them out and deconstruct them and turn them into something simple.  I do understand, however, that this is what makes me who I am.  It just sucks sometimes. I feel things so deeply.  I feel with such incredible intensity at times that it's almost unbearable.  My soul contains energy that just doesn't seem possible, or of this world.  And it's always there.  I can't contain it yet letting it out hurts almost as much as trying to dissolve it, because it continues to regenerate.  I wish my soul had an off button, or at least a pause button.  Even having a minute or two of space for me to breathe and not feel it so deeply would be a welcome break. But yes, again, I do realize that this is who I am and what makes me

As it is

Sometimes answers aren't meant to come just because you're looking for them.  Searching for clarity in situations that have not yet played themselves out just seems to cause more struggle which in turn makes it harder to know exactly what you really *should* do.  It's tough to dig down deep enough to let your true intuition guide you when you become distracted by outside opinions and perceptions.  Objective views are great, of course, but sometimes they lack pertinent information. I've struggled lately, looking for guidance and the fact remains that I am NOT at a crossroads.  Obstacles have presented themselves, yes, but I am still on the same road, and rather than take the hand of a force that I do NOT trust or even recognize and let it guide me, I am going to swiftly push the obstacle aside and continue on the road in the same manner that I had originally intended.  I'm going to keep walking in the same way that I had previously felt was right. I am going to co

Holidays, tradition, and moving past the grief

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It’s quiet in my house.  The sun is shining and I am sunk deeply into my couch under two vintage blankets that likely kept my great-grandmother warm on similar days as she sat in the same spot under the same roof.  There are many differences, however, as I reflect fondly on how it must have been in those days, how it was for the majority of my own life and how it has come to be now. My grandmother grew up with a house full of family.  Her grandparents, maternal and paternal, her aunts, uncles and many family friends, who may as well have been family, spent their lives here.  If they didn’t live here they enjoyed just as many dinners in my kitchen as those who did.  I can still feel that energy surrounding me, even though the only other breathing soul here belongs to my dog.  Not just the energy from the generations that were here before me, but the energy from 33 years of holiday meals I was lucky enough to experience. My grandmother was a baker.  She probably spent more h

Decision and Indecision

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This journey continues.  I've been conflicted in whether to continue to take on photography work on a professional level and the answer still doesn't seem to be clearly presenting itself.  I've been letting go for a while, finishing up the processing from the sessions that filled every free moment of the past two months while trying not to make a decision.  Thinking that the answer will come to me when the time is right. The time comes and goes, and comes and goes again. After I finished all my scheduled shoots at the end of October, I made it clear that I was taking a break. Yet somehow the work continued to present itself.  So I thought that maybe I wasn't meant to quit it, at least not just yet.  And I never really planned to completely quit, yet there are also times that I don't want anything to do with it any more. This is the Libra quality I struggle with most.  Trying to find balance in my life, I struggle with making decisions more than anything.  I

no more knotty

Just over two months of not brushing my hair, letting it take on a life of its own as the strands twisted and turned into each other, I decided to take a comb to it.  The answer is simple, yet complicated.  For one thing, it's knitting season.  This is the time of year I spend a ridiculous amount of time with my ass planted on my couch, under a blanket with a ball of yarn and a set of circulars attached to me like another appendage.  And I like hats.  Last season I could have supplied a small country with the amount of hats I knit.  Unfortunately when I put one of my favorites on for the first time a couple weeks ago I realized that my dreads were stretching them out.  And I knew that if I continued on this journey the hats would just stretch further, or else I'd have to knit some slouchy hats, which would be fine, but alas....the time had come. And it wasn't just the hats.  To be honest, I was starting to feel like a mess.  Obvious from my last post, my hair was becoming

Mercury In Retrograde

Apparently when Mercury is in Retrograde we are supposed to reflect more than communicate.  This is proven to me as the wifi at my office is totally fritzing on a  minute to minute basis.  And I've felt pretty scattered in the past week, but it is what it is, and to the contrary I feel like this is the best time for me to write and get out all the shit that's in my head. Tonight I spent a bit of time on my porch writing in my journal.  These beautiful fall days are probably on their way out as I type and tomorrow will most likely bring more true to the season weather.  I seem to do my most intimate and deep writing when I'm sitting on my porch, with the late afternoon sun warming me, soaking it all up.  Winter seems to keep me stuck to my couch, mostly with the knitting needles in my hands, which is fine, but I really need to create a space to do real writing during these cold months. I attempted to work at my dreads tonight.  I made one last week with the twist and

Two month dreadlock update

I realize it’s been a while since I’ve updated on how my dreadlocks are progressing.  It’s a much slower process than I initially expected, but it’s surely been an interesting an enlightening one.  There will be no photos to accompany this post as my hair is currently in a messy ball on top of my head and I haven’t yet showered, but I promise to share some soon. To be completely honest, there have been days full of temptation to pick up the brush and just end this journey.  There are times that I go on these internal judgments and wonder how I’m viewed by others.  I attended a business lunch for my boss a few weeks ago and I couldn’t help but wonder if people looked at my mess of a hair with the same judgments.  At this point in my journey, I still only have about 10 locks forming, and none of them really are completely “locked” right now.  There are two stemming from my hairline at my forehead that seem to be the most formed.  One in particular has taken on the look of a twisting

Still on the journey

Been longer than I planned since I updated.  It's been a really slow process in terms of changes in my hair.  There are, at the current moment, three locks forming quite nicely and I haven't yet taken any photos of them as it's kind of hard to do myself.  So, perhaps there's a little metaphor in this part of the journey.  Ask for help :)  It's really not that hard, but asking for help shows vulnerability, which I have a hard time with.  And hence, another reason for embarking on this journey.  I want to allow myself to be more open, more vulnerable.  There are certain situations in  my life that have given me the opportunity to learn patience and gentleness and respect for the journeys of others.  It is easy to look at anyone from your own perspective and judge them and expect things of them based on your own needs.  But often, what these people truly need is your tenderness, your ability to put their own needs ahead of yours, knowing that they know what they need

Dreads - Day 10

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When I first mentioned that I was letting my hair dread, my kids had mixed responses.  Seth was excited, and Sean wasn't quite so much.  I didn't really explain in detail why I was doing it; just that it was a journey I felt I needed right now.  Seth actually said he wanted them too, though his hair is much too short for it, and due to their change in schooling, it’s not something that he will be able to do.  In fact, the beautiful long hair Sean has grown all summer has now been chopped, which was pretty tough for me to deal with.  I loved his long hair with its thick and beautiful golden strands that hung perfectly around his gorgeous face like those of a beach-loving surfer. But it’s all part of the journey I’m quickly realizing, as Sean has now made it clear that he doesn’t want me to grow dreadlocks because he will miss being able to play with my hair.  Many evenings we would spend on the couch with him running his fingers through my hair like a comb, delicately separ

Dreadlock Journey - part 1

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Last Wednesday I packed my boys in the car and headed to the beach for a couple days of camping.  Thanks to a very sweet friend I was supplied with all the necessities to ensure we remained safe and comfortable.  A tent large enough for the three of us, a canopy to make sure we had shade from the sun, a lantern and a few other handy tools for “roughing it”. And rough it we did.  Since there was no sun in sight we refrained from setting up the canopy and as the wind began to blow pretty hard it was probably a good thing.  I spent a few hours after the boys fell asleep wondering if there was a tropical storm coming that perhaps my handy weather app had missed.  Fortunately we didn’t blow away and I eventually fell asleep, but when the morning came so did the rain.  And it rained most of the day on and off.  The sun never came out either, but DUDE….we were at the beach, so I flipped up my middle finger to the showering skies and we trekked out onto the sand anyway. I was so g