Category Archives: artist

It has been a long few days …

or has it been weeks?

I haven’t posted anything new.

No blog posts.

No photographs.

Nothing.

I have been in a holding pattern of sleepwalking, nightmares and erotic dreams that leave me confused, wondering and bewildered …

and all the while, trying my very best to make it, without losing my cool, through the seemingly endless days and eventful nights.

I have had patients cry on me, their families strike me, people pulling at my heartstrings which are linked directly to my tear ducts and during all of this, trying to find out if I am to blame for something I had no control over.

I wonder if I have severed a crucial friendship and have already began to mourn the loss of it.

I have a way of ruining beautiful things because I rarely feel worthy of them.

I have slept outside, sent messages I wasn’t aware of and tried desperately to hold it together.

A difficult few days, indeed.

But tonight changed all that.

It came a storm.

A big one, with lots of lightning and torrential rain.

Normally, during such an event, I would be set up on the porch with my tripod and camera, but this time was different.

This one wasn’t to be documented and photographed.

It was to set my spirit free.

And it did.

I stood on the porch with my jeans and t-shirt, getting soaked.

But as time passed, I wanted no earthly barriers between me and the blessing that God was giving me.

A cleansing.

A fresh beginning.

Letting the past be past and bygones be bygones and memories no more than a blip on my radar.

One piece of clothing after another was discarded until I found myself standing nude and vulnerable under the rain, with the lightning flashing, the thunder bellowing, echoing between the mountains and valleys …

tears running down my face.

I prayed to a God that I had decided had forgotten me.

He hadn’t.

I think He was just waiting for me to remember Him.

It was frightening.

It was freeing.

I was liberated from the hold this world had on me.

I was, for that span of time, one with nature and the God who created it.

I still struggle with the emotions and thoughts in my head, but He designed my brain and is well acquainted with my mindless and sometimes senseless ramblings.

He doesn’t hold them against me and so I won’t hold them against myself.

Not everyone believes in my God.  I don’t find fault with them.  I know what I know, they know what they know.

I can only be who I am and, despite all my faults, and they are many, I feel at peace.

And despite that, my friends who don’t believe in my God like me anyway.

I am humbled by that.

Just  as I accept them, they accept me.

With our differences of opinions and thoughts.

It is irrelevant.

Isn’t that what it was supposed to be like?

Love one another?

Are my thoughts still burning through my head? Yes.

Do I still sometimes feel out of control? Yes.

Do I have someone to share the thoughts and emotions with? Yes, and I am thankful for them.

Do I wonder if I am making the right choices? Yes.

Following Christ doesn’t mean that everything is just peachy.  In all honesty, it is the opposite.

I don’t do it right, I never have, but I hope to at least encourage somebody along the way.

And selfishly, I hope to be encouraged.

I wonder sometimes if I am nothing more than the punching bag of the universe.  I don’t mind it if it keeps someone else from suffering, but every now and then, it wears on the soul.

And then, an incredible storm comes, I stand in the rain, and all is right again.

The circle of life.

It is what it is what it is what it is.

It is what we make of it that counts.

So make it count.

a beautiful human, inside and out.

a beautiful human, inside and out.

Picking and culling …

is a real pain in the nether regions.

I’ve been going through things in my house today, what to keep, what to trash and I find that there are really very few things I have any use for.

It seems that the most important things to me are my photo albums, laptop, external hard drive, camera, national geographics, 1000 places to see before I die book, coffee grinder, a portrait I drew of my dad as an Airman, the photos my daughter and nieces have drawn through the years, a blown glass wine cork and my lava lamp.

When it comes down to it, that, out of a houseful of useless things, doesn’t amount to much.

I suppose, if I needed to, I could easily put all my “treasures” in a garbage bag and live happily under a bridge.

I like hot showers, though, so that might pose an oppositional equation.

I have friends and family who have things that they treasure.  I don’t really treasure anything.

Not anything I can hold in my hand.

They are just things.

The objects I treasure aren’t objects one can take off the shelf and admire … they aren’t really objects at all.

God.

Creation.

Friends.

Family.

Loyalty.

Music.

Words.

One can’t own this stuff.  They can simply be a part of the magnificence as it as unfolds, one day into the next.

I didn’t mean to have an epiphany while cleaning house and doing laundry, but it just happened.

I had the chance to drive across the Hoover Dam back when you could drive across it … and drive through the desert to get there.

I had the chance to stand before the Lincoln Memorial and know that I was living a dream.

I have so many places I want to see, so much of creation that is only a picture in my mind, not one imprinted on my soul for I have not seen it for myself.

I want to.

That is what I want to hold onto.

The dreams of what can be accomplished, what can be sought after, what can be found simply by following the imagination.

I have things that my late husband gave me.  They are good for nothing but reminders.

The memories are in my heart and mind and soul.

I’m not really big on memories as it seems the difficult ones, the hard ones … they are the ones that come to mind.

I have to work to bring up the good ones.

So I’m culling more than picking … and I feel good about that.

Someone I admire a great deal …

likely much more than is good for me …

once told me they occasionally live a John Denver kind of life … I’m going to try to be more John Denver-ish myself.

I will have the courage to submit my book, my poems, my photographs.

I will have the courage to feed my wanderlust and see the place I long to see.

I will simply have courage.

I earn a paycheck as a nurse, it is true, but in my heart, I am more and, at the same time less.

I only have so many years to live.

What is that song?  100 years?

There is no point in deluding myself that I will ever make it to a hundred years old.

Why wait?

Why indeed?

The innumerable stars of the sky

The innumerable stars of the sky

Love is the most powerful of emotions

Love is the most powerful of emotions

Through Abby's eyes ... i miss this sweet girl

Through Abby’s eyes … i miss this sweet girl

If I were granted a single wish …

I know, without hesitation, what I would wish for.

And, though it is second highest on my list and likely what many of my friends will think of first, my most cherished wish is not to own a  jeep.

It is to be able to play the piano.

No, not simply play it, but to master it.  To become one with it as though it were an extension of myself; much, I suppose, in the way my camera is now.

A part of my heart, my soul, my spirit.

A bursting forth of all the melodies that live inside my head.

I practice and practice and practice and yet never seem to make any real progress.

Oh, I can play at it a bit, but let’s, for a moment, live in reality, shall we?

I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t wish I could play.

Wanted, more than anything else, to be able to sit down and just play.

Whatever.

Whenever.

I have friends who play.

My friend Randy is a genius on the piano and many times, I have watched his hands move effortlessly across the keys and found tears that I wasn’t even aware of sliding down my face at the simple beauty of the sight as well as the sound.

He played one of his original pieces at my late husband’s funeral and it was astounding.

It is the song I most request him to play.

And he does.  Play it for me, that is, because he knows I have a love to hear and watch him play.

I have other friends who play, ones I have heard though have not seen, but in my mind, I bring their hands into focus as they make music out of the air they breathe.

I hope, one day, to see it as I hear it, for while it was beautiful to hear, it would be magic to see.

It is the only thing that I can think of that I would give up photography for.

Yes, I said it.

I would trade photography, something I love more than life itself, for the ability to sit at a piano and play with the knowledge and privilege of an accomplished pianist.

Those who play often take it for granted.

That ability.

That gift.

That beauty.

I make music.  Some of it quite lovely … but I don’t read music and therefore cannot write music which leaves me with no way to portray it or save it so that I can play it again.

And so it is, though a lovely thing at the time, lost to me when I need it most.

I don’t want to depend on others for something that completes me and yet, I find myself doing exactly that.

And sometimes, I am simply left wanting, wishing and imagining.

Such is the way of it and, I suppose if I want it to be different, I will have to bring to the surface my inner pianist.

She is there, I know she is.  I just haven’t found her yet.

pianist

a pianists’ hands

I’m learning to see with my eyes …

and it is so very cool.  I suppose, coming from a photographer, that sounds a bit odd, but it is true.  When taking photographs, my eyes pick up beauty, my mind recognizes the beauty of light and my camera captures the image.

While it takes a bit of skill, it isn’t obstinately complicated.

Art class, however, has taken me to places I never knew existed, realms that before that first day, I hadn’t had the insight to imagine.  I find that my eyes want to see things that aren’t there, almost like a camera.  I see dark shadows and try to put into place what exists there.

I’m learning that nothing exists there other than the dark shadows.

I know about shadow and light.  I know about aperture and lens speed.  I am quite adept at depth of field and have macro down to a science.

What I don’t know, however, but am learning, is about shadow and shading.  It is a different world, one that I find I love.  More than photography?  I don’t know.  The jury is still out on that, but I know this; I love watching a pencil sketch become something recognizable.

Knowing that it came my eyes and my hands and my mind.

Knowing that I have the ability to breathe it, with some effort, practice and determination to learn the craft, as well as encouragement from a stellar teacher, onto the paper.

It is mind-boggling and it makes me feel powerful in a way that I never thought possible.

It makes me feel closer to God knowing that, through my eyes and by the movement of my hand, I can create something out of nothing.

Without sunsets or full moons or mountain vistas.

Me.

Creating something beautiful.

I am awestruck at the joy I feel when I have a pencil in my hand and blank piece of paper before me.

I find, though, that the old habits of little faith and lack of self-confidence butt up head-to-head with my new-found joy;  I am also learning , however,to tell that voice that tells me I can’t to shut up.

I can.  And I will.

As a matter of fact, I already am.

So for those who feel inadequate, that they don’t quite measure up, that they are inferior … think again.

I am finding that when I don’t compare myself to others, when I believe in myself, when I have faith in the gifts that my Father God has given me, I measure up just fine.

Sam … beautiful Sam … facebook_1290742365(1)

An eye for which to see with … IMAG0284_1