STORY

My goal is to continually learn and grow in my art.  The field of photography and film making is so broad and so technical and continuously changing; I can’t imagine I will ever master it all and I’m actually ok with that.  Art is like air.  I need it in my life.  I don’t want to do anything that’s going to suffocate or strangle the beauty that needs to be noticed.  So I create and learn and create some more.

Each year I try to participate in a workshop hosted by an artist I admire.   Last month I bought the TeethKiss Workshop by Yan Palmer and I’ve dedicated the next 30 days to answering questions and sorting out my thoughts on business.  It’s not easy.   And it’s not new.  I’ve laid awake, rolling around similar questions for years.  And in the end, it’s just too difficult to unearth the answers.

or maybe I’m too lazy.

or too afraid.

I’ve decided to commit this time not to chicken out, not to run, not to bury my head (or heart) in the dirt pile.   As my therapist says, “this is the time of reckoning” and I reckon she’s right.

My friend Joy says the same things my new friend Yan says:

You already know who you are.

The voice you are seeking someone to validate, got buried, but still lives.

Either way, it’s hard to hear our voice and the main reason is FEAR.

Fear of of what will happen if I unpack and unbury the voice.

This is all true.   And I also wonder what it looks like when the stories overlap and intermingle with those around me, people who have wounded me and brought me to the edge of flames.   Is it fair to tell the story that might hurt someone else in the telling?

What I do know is that my story is what makes me different from you or any other 40 year old wife with three children, homeschooling and photographing and planting a garden and a life in Tulsa, OK.

I feel like I’m on a treasure hunt.

The Journey by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice-

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

“Mend my life!”

each voice cried.

But you didn’t stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do-

determined to save

the only life you could save.