frog prince

i was the girl hiding in the trees. branches became rooms in the most beautiful house i could imagine. for years, i’d come home with pine sap on my jeans and rhododendron leaves tangled in my hair.

we both stopped in mid-stride when we saw it there, seemingly growing straight out of the dry ground. it was mighty and strong and amazing to watch. his voice was deep and thoughtful. he hugged with branches and walked on trunks. we were mesmorized, both myself and my son.

i haven’t felt that kind of magic since i was a kid. and so because of it, we walked up together to this magnificent tree, just to get close to him, to breathe in some of that magic. he looked down at us with deeply set eyes and spoke his slow greeting. i became a 34 year old little girl thinking of nothing else to say other than “you are beautiful.”

and so that is what i said.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

on monday i caught a frog. it moved at my feet in the dewy clover. i knelt down to find him hiding. he jumped from my hands twice before settling into the safety of my open palm.

he peered up at me with big eyes on a tiny body. his heart racing out of his skin. after awhile we just sat there staring at each other. he at me, and me at him. i laughed outloud because i haven’t caught a frog since i was ankle deep in a new jersey creek. i grew up in that creek with g.i. joes and lego damns to make lagoons for rock sitting mermaids. i left my childhood there on the banks of that creek. i think it’s waiting for me still.

i let him go in the clover and he hopped away on springy legs never once looking back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Got Prayer?” their signs ask me while i am stopped at a red light about to turn into the market. do i have prayer? not in your traditional sense. i wave anyway, simply because they’re out there like petitioners for hope and faith and belief.

and so am i, in my own way. catching frogs and letting them go. asking them to spread the word that i believe. because i still do. and if that is a prayer, then so be it. and if that is hope, then better yet. “tell your friends” i whispered, “i let you go because i am looking for a man named truth.”

 

 

vortex

“she was weeping over the end of a cycle. how one must be thrust out of a finished cycle in life and that leap the most difficult to make, to part with one’s faith, one’s love, when one would prefer to renew the faith and recreate the passion.  

the struggle to emerge out of the past, clean of memories; the inadequacy of our hearts to cut life into separate and final portions; the pain of this constant ambivalence and interrelation of emotions; the hunger for frontiers against which we might lean as upon closed doors before we proceed forward; the struggle against diffusion, new beginnings, against finality in acts without finality or end, in our cursedly repercussive being…”

~ Anais Nin

home sweet…

“It turns out that the drain pipe from the sink is attached to nothing and water just runs right onto the ground in the crawl space underneath the house and then trickles out into the stream that passes through the backyard.

It turns out that the house is not really attached to the ground but
sits atop a few loose concrete blocks all held in place by gravity, which, as I understand it, means “seriousness.”

Well, this is serious enough.

If you look into it further you will discover that the water is not attached to anything either and that perhaps the rocks and the trees are not all that
firmly in place.

The world is a stage.

But don’t try to move anything. You might hurt yourself, besides that’s a job for the stagehands and union rules are strict. You are merely a player about to deliver a soliloquy on the septic system to a couple dozen popple trees and a patch of pale blue sky. “

~ Gravity  by Louis Jenkins

this place i am is lush with all its greenery. it is joyous. this is the place i found when i needed it most. this is the place i landed after jumping. this place i will not forget.

the cedar trees with shaggy bark grow crooked out of thickly decadent grass. the views, the space, the tree house balconies. i have come to call this place home. see? i said it. and it sounds awkward as it crumbles off my lips. home is a perception, it slithers away the minute i try to pin it down. this is me, the gypsy. this is me never living anywhere longer than eight years.

home is sweet. home is…

this is not a place of permanence. i know this now. when she handed me the keys she told me this. home is a place to rest, to catch your breath. this is my between place. she somehow knew this, maybe it was in my eyes. the keys jingled in my hands as she said “you never know what will happen.”

i am staying present in this place of impermanence. i am bowing down, grateful for what it brings me, and for what i have brought myself because of it. so, when it asks me to lie down for a moment and enjoy the green, i do.

because home is sweet.

breathe easy

we are home from our journey into the time warp that entails the ER and an overnight stay at the hospital. what an adventure!

after a fever spike sunday night and that deep scary cough, then a series of nebulizer treatments in our doctors office on monday, we were sent to the ER because river was not responding and still not getting enough oxygen for the amount of work his body was doing.

he sure is working hard  is what everyone said to me with worry and smiling eyes (for the benefit of the mother) but a mother knows better.

this is the adrenaline rush of being hurried into the honeycomb, safe from outside (devoid of natural sunlight and fresh air) tucked into the corner of this world buzzing with worker bees humming and friendly with masks and smiling eyes all working together to figure out why my son was struggling so hard to breathe.

this is intense back to back treatments, steroids, fresh oxygen, chest xray, and IV fluids.

now,26 hours later (and two hours of sleep) we know it was  intermittent asthma and we are at home with all the necessities to keep his lungs in check.

it was quite the event for this momma/child duo. and for those of you who have much more practice with the hospital experience, i commend you all. i do believe i’ve said it before… mothers are the strongest species on earth.

i now know this to be true:
being in the ER with a child who can’t breath takes years off your life.

while going through paperwork and prescriptions, i found this… these words scribbled on the back of a doctor’s receipt, most likely written in the dark of sleep deprivation, monday at 3am.

they arrive in the dark of sleep
i open my eyes to see them bedside
hovering in scrubs
like angels with masks
and gloved hands.

this is not real.

the mist floats, rises, dissipates
he looks like the dream of a tiny fighter pilot
masks, tubes, IV’s, oxygen levels beeping.
in this darkest hour of morning, there is no dark
with the constant green glow of the computers
commenting and criticizing his vitals.

he’s a fighter pilot struggling to breathe
with tears in his eyes.

they are a team of angels
they monitor the hospital dreams
together in this bed
tagged on our wrists
i breathe in, he breathes out.
and there’s not enough oxygen between us.

i’m not sure how we ended up here
yes, i know how i got here
i circled the parking lot four times
and carried him in.
he was heavy on my shoulder
we got a room right away

this is fast, i think.
they are so kind here.
i later find that
breathing takes priority
but i cannot gauge this sense of urgency.
emergency room.

everyone knows his name
and there are so many people and forms and procedures
but i keep wondering how did i get here?
so far from home.

i know how i got here, to this bed
eight hours later,
they wheeled him up
a bed on wheels, a talkative dude named mike,
a 1am ride and a whole different team of nurse and doctors.

and the dry erase board with the goal for the night:
breathe easy.

 

dark though it is

two hours of walking around the city at night makes me feel strangely alive. slinging my camera and my tripod i set out with no destination in mind. alone. maybe i was hoping to get lost, but i know this city too well for that. this place, this place i’ve lived longer than anywhere else. how can that be? and how much longer will it keep me?

i’m feeling drawn towards something, and away from something. from what yet i don’t know. and so i keep walking, knowing at some point i’ll find it, whatever it is i’m looking for. 

Listen

with the night falling we are saying thank you

we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings

we are running out of the glass rooms

with our mouths full of food to look at the sky

and say thank you

we are standing by the water looking out in different directions

…

with the animals dying around us

our lost feelings we are saying thank you

with the forests falling faster than the minutes

of our lives we are saying thank you

with the words going out like cells of a brain

with the cities growing over us like the earth

we are saying thank you faster and faster

with nobody listening we are saying thank you

we are saying thank you and waving

dark though it is

~ w.s merwin

middle place

this middle place is not mid-life. it is merely space in time, a mathematical equation of birth-life-death. we spin in orbit in this middle place. we spin out beyond ourselves, past freedom and invincible youth, but not yet to a place of rest.

this place is churning, it is frenzy. it is anything but slowing down. with one hand on a child and one hand on a parent we (those of us who find ourselves in this middle place) are metaphorically stuck. we are the balance, the weight centered on the rope in this tug of war. not yet ready to let go of either side. child or parent.

i sit wide-eyed with a nervous stomach because there’s nothing else to do but wait. and so i busy myself with tedious nearly manic cleaning, meaningless moments, i procrastinate real work and deadlines and clients.

it shifts so quickly, this space between. and it hits hard when i am alone. when he is at school and i have those few minutes between drop of and work and pick up again.

it shifts quickly. the focus of health, the teetering of test results and news of something new, something old, something different, something quite possibly sadder slipping from view. mother, father, child. i will always be your baby.

i have moments of great strength.
i have hours of great weakness.

will we never know our parents grief? what we remember is how they moved slow in the evening. how they rose early in the morning. how we always ate the same dinner on sundays after a day at the beach or an afternoon in the garden. will we never know that spark of person from their youth? it leaves us before we are ever ready. here we are again, always missing what we don’t have.

“oh dear” he says. then instantly there’s silence over the phone. i can feel it, i know his face is screwed up with tears, then sobbing like i’ve never heard in my life. my heart is breaking and it sounds like his sobbing.

and what comes out of my mouth is compassion. i’m surprised by my own strength. here, get on my back and i’ll carry you and this weight we feel. it’s come full circle now, for me to carry you. i am your baby but i’m stronger than you now. this i don’t tell him. but this he knows. this is where i am, welcome to the middle place.

there is so much empathy it hurts. i can feel his sadness with every molecule of my body. it is nearly too much, nearly.

~~~~~~~~~

i’m red-rimmed eyes hiding behind and under sunglasses and a hat. at pick up he runs to me as usual, in his shy afterschool way. and i scoop him up and quickly head to the car. he nuzzles down into my neck, i kiss his cheek and choke on my words. i love you is what i say, but what i’m thinking is please let me stay strong for you, i can see you as a grown man and i don’t want you, my baby, to have to carry me too soon. no parent wants that weight on their child. but sometimes it is required.

i don’t know who he’s talking to, my back is turned with him in my arms. but he yells out to the group of teachers and classmates we are leaving in his loudest proudest voice, “She’s Wonder Woman!“

my tears turn laughter at this parent-child-parent journey we are about to set foot on.

 

dichotomy

* Divine Dichotomy: that two contradictory truths can exist, neither making the other untrue.

i had the pleasure of hearing Elizabeth Gilbert speak last night at the most amazing venue. her presence is one of total comfort, she is exactly who she is and i was giddy just to hear her talk and see where her thoughts took her, and respectively where her thoughts took me as well.

there were many words she spoke that really resonated with me, but one thought in particular stuck to my mind. as she was telling this story, i knew it was the thing, the one thing, i was supposed to hear. (if there is just one thing to remember. it’s the one thing that digs deep as you begin to feel as if the entire theatre is  disappearing and she’s speaking directly to you as if seated beside you on a couch).

it was the concept of writers block.

blocked is not the word i would use. and it wasn’t exactly the word she used either. she described it more as giving in to the fear of moving forward. something as simple as being frozen with self doubt.

she spoke of the time after great success with Eat, Pray, Love (while under contract to produce a follow-up book) the process of experiencing that pressure, writing with all the readers voices in her head, seated around her desk with her, hovering over her shoulder with each word she wrote)

she spoke of those two years. the manuscript she finished, the words that were bound into print, which she held in her hands.  after it was complete she realized it was not her, not her true authentic voice, and therefore it could never see the light of day (nor be published.)

after confessing to her editor, after admitting her fears of never being able to write again, she mentioned to us the concept of distraction.

it’s okay to be distracted. to let it go and not think of it for some time. to pour yourself into another creative outlet. i had an image in my mind. (remember she was talking directly to me in this conversation) i had the image of me with my camera avoiding the work i should be doing. i had the image of me playing with settings and sunlight when i should be working on grammar and syntax.

for the entire summer of 2008 she said she threw herself into gardening. she didn’t think of writing, of the book, of the advance she had been given, of the words that simply were not in her yet. she gardened.

think of it this way, your divinity is on loan to you, passed through you from some other source. let it pass and it will come back in time.

she told the story of summer turned fall, the ground hard with dying plants. it was october and as she pulled up the last of the withered tomato plants, the very first sentence of her next book appeared before her “in perfect type.” she went to her room, found some paper, and two months later her new book was finished.

i believe this. because this is how it works. it’s just that easy. (easy is a relative concept) it’s not something to be forced. it’s not something to be turned on like water from a faucet. it’s something that comes through you like air, like energy, like a tap on the shoulder and a ‘pardon me’ so loud there’s no ignoring it.

i’ve been struggling internally for quite some time. not ‘battling’ like swords to demons, but moreso bothered by an incessant itch. a pest, a slight buzzing in me that won’t go away until i address the issue with myself. (i haven’t had this conversation with myself until now)

i thought i had to do it all. i thought i had to juggle. to hold both parts of what i am (what i’ve become most surprisingly) and figure out how to make them get along without competition. figure out how to give them both time when they dance awkwardly together (and strangely do not compliment each other as one should think they would). they fight over time. they fight over energy and emotion and brain space and blood sugar and sunlight.

photography is easy. easy in the sense of instant gratification. easy in the sense of aesthetically pleasing. easy in the sense that it actually pays me money. it is lighthearted and beautiful and easy to be around. photography is everyone’s best friend. i have fallen quite surprisingly into this role of photographer because it comes easily.

all the while my mind, this other side of me, the wicked darkness whispers ‘traitor’ and ‘fake’! because i know that at my most inner core, i am a writer.

writing is not easy. it has never paid me, nor have i asked it to. it is painful and exhausting and requires so much of my time that i have been supressing it, kicking it away with disregard. i love it and yet it itches me, mocks me, drives me forward, and is all my soul wants to do simply for the process of doing it. yet here i am, i’ve been denying it water in hopes that it just shuts the hell up and withers away. (this thing i love! this thing that is deeply a part of me. how could i be so cruel?!) i don’t want it to wither entirely. but just for now, please, because life is too full, too emotional, too much, too much. there are words i want to say, but i deny myself them. because photography is easy. and writing is not, it is something that makes me human. and most often feeling human (for me) is a momentarily painful experience.

i guess i was given permission last night to dive into this other creative outlet.  and it gave me a breath, and a bit of the guilt washed away, and i felt a bit lighter. 

i know at some point, it will be time. and that writer part of me will grow again, demanding a pen and paper just as now my eye is drawn to the camera.  i need not worry about that now. it will come when it comes. and when it does, the human experience will be altogether different.

“Drawing is like taking a line for a walk” -Paul Klee
(and it’s how one begins again to write.)

shutter sister

“She said she usually cried at least once each day not because she was sad, but because the world was so beautiful & life was so short.”

~ storypeople

hello lovely! 

really? this must be a dream.

it’s true, this sisterhood is your home away from home.

{overcome by joy, completely and entirely}

never before have i felt so embraced for simply being myself.

thank you.

join me at shutter sisters, will you?

my real name

“I can remember walking down the street, saying my name over & over, until all of a sudden, it didn’t sound like my name anymore. It didn’t even sound like a word at all & then I stopped & the silence rushed in & whispered words that sounded more like my real name & I smiled & thought to myself how surprised my parents would be when they found out what a mistake they had made.”

~storypeople

it’s official, i’m a contributing photographer for Getty Images.

{!!!}

i feel a bit naked putting myself out there for the world to see.

{art is subjective}

but i must say, it feels good!

{art is bliss}

dear world, please be kind.

black and white

If there is any secret to this life I live, this is it:
the sound of what cannot be seen sings within everything that can.
and there is nothing more to it than that.
~ storypeople

life is never black and white.

i’m buried under piles of paperwork. it’s my world right now.  we are coming to the end of a very long year. so, how is it i get lost here in the final stretch… where i can see the finish. am i just that tired? possibly.

words lay flat on paper. they are typed, scanned, copied. they hold no question like the questions they stir in me.  i’m wordless now. i’m wondering how black and white text can evoke so much emotion.

reminders of promises made.

disappointment deflates any floating balloon with what was once filled with hope. disappointment leaks. it dissipates while we sleep only to wake and find it on the floor, limp and useless.

words should be true. this is all that matters. speak the truth.

i will not cry today. i will not let your empty promises disapoint me any longer. and i know the greatest challenge for me will be to watch this disappointment rise and fall in my own son. floating and bobbing like an old balloon sinking. losing air, losing promises.

he believes everything you say.
you are god to him.
so please be careful with your words.

the woman at the park laughed as she sipped her diet coke and said, “people just need to learn to be nice.” i left her with silence. it was so much more than that. you cannot put heartache and abandon into a box and label it ‘divorce’. what is right is wrong for others. what is wrong might be right for me.

there is no right or wrong.
there is no black and white.
ever.

she made him promise to help clean the toy he was using in the wet sand. with her hand on her hip and another holding her 44 oz cup she told him “since you’re using it, you’ll need to help clean it.”

“ok” he nodded.
“you promise?” she added.
“i promise” he said.

as we were leaving i helped him find a bucket and water to keep his word to this stranger slinging aspartame. to hold his promise as small as it was, because i don’t want him growing up to think words have no meaning and promises mean nothing.