doorwaystraveler

willing to begin.

heather, january 2010

after a week of many hours spent behind the camera, i think the term focus has taken on a whole new meaning. it has been about keeping pace with incredibly brave and talented women, finding my footing, trusting my eye, and experiencing a kind of tired i've never felt before.

like bone tired. the kind of tired that comes from holding space, caring deeply, and immersing.

how different it is to really want something. to throw it all in and to have to actually believe i can do it. that i am entitled to be where i am.

and how easy it is to indulge in the idea that i might blow the whole thing and be found out. that i really was a fraud all along.

so continues the unveiling of the obvious. that i am as real and entitled as i believe myself to be. that as i stand in an endless hall of mirrors, and really open my eyes to the friends and colleagues, mentors and muses that are reflected there, i know that it would be nothing short of an insult to them and to myself to reflect back anything less than what i see.

and with that: i humbly proudly share the slideshow from the first of the three photo shoots last week. the subject is a dear friend who radiates the fusion of strength and softness like no other. turn on the speakers or throw on some headphones and spend a few moments celebrating beauty and the willingness to begin.

the one that's been brewing.

the lady of the house, shampura village, rajasthan, india, 2009

so i censor. we all do to some degree. and especially with a blog, because, well, i'm aware of the diverse audience that is reading this. i see my stats, i guess at who's here. i don't want to offend anyone. it's not that i've ever lied, or been inauthentic. it's just that i've kept this place soft. mostly kind. vulnerable. perhaps compartmentalized. while i use words like angst and frustration occasionally,  i haven't  really let on to the unflattering behaviours that accompany these feelings. or the colorful language. the indulgences. the sarcasm. the drama. even the funny.  the underlying layers of real.

maybe you do not want to see these things. maybe if i started dropping f-bombs all over the place, you wouldn't come back. (maybe you'd like me more). what if i admitted that sometimes i am just unapologetically self-absorbed? that sometimes i want so desperately to know myself separate from all that mirrors me (just as much as i want to know myself in all the beauty and connectedness). i crave alone. solitude. division. sometimes i feel over-identified with partner, children, community. i just want to know who i am, stripped away of all that surrounds me.

and, at the same time, i can watch hours of dexter and big love in a futile attempt to forget these things.

same goes for eating chocolate. and staring at walls.

there are doorways that are built for the sole purpose of keeping things out. they're massive and built on assumptions. with motes and scary reptiles. and sometimes it seems that the only way to open them is with pure force. i'm just not sure if the force i am looking for is within or without me. whether i want to rip the fucking thing down brick by brick until i bleed, or if i am longing for someone or some experience strong enough to bust a hole right through it. or, probably truer still, i alternate wanting both. and, at the same time, it is not lost on me that the whole game is built on illusion .

all i know for sure, is that if i truly want to come more completely into an integrated, entitled, worthy, respectable, growed-up version of myself, the traveling seeker of beauty and connection,  i need to ask of myself what i ask of other. and that is to be nothing short of whole. i'm not really interested in just the soft and the pretty. i want to know the throw-down grit, too. where humanity meets blinding light. and wicked jokes sit beside eloquent proverbs. 

and so the obvious is that i best be offering up what it is i ask for. 

less strategy, more reveal.

greater risk and, hopefully, greater reward.

trusting what i see.

emma at breakfast, bbc retreat, cotswalds, january 2010

it's quite easy for me to trust what they see. there isn't a lot of thinking involved. i just know when i like something they've captured.

but,  learning to trust what i see? even when what i see is out of focus, framed askew, soft, but with an edge? when what i see are fragments and hues and reflections? that's another level of faith entirely.

this next week,  i have three "official" photo shoots. THREE. all with beautiful, dynamic subjects. and each, as with everything else, will (hopefully) involve the right mix of light, shadow, a steady hand (or not), some deep breaths, and, most of all, trust in what i see.

it's the trust in what we see, the surrendering to it, that collides beauty with connection. captures the two merged, and makes it tangible.

oh man. it's all just one crazy obvious metaphor after another, isn't it?

sometimes i feel a little slow on the uptake.

(wish me luck?)

she knows things.

girl from shampura, rajasthan, india, 2009

i love the bit of skepticism in this girl's expression. its like she knows something more than the rest of us. mixed in with her innocence and curiosity is an element of penetrating wisdom (and maybe even a little sarcasm). i would love to have known the goings on in her mind when i took this photo of her.

if only.

i am feeling that edgy angst and inertia again. the state of being that follows the announcement of still time. the one that would rather do anything but hear the hungers and confusions that wrestle when i sit.

a new level of honesty is coming on. and with it i fear tornadoes and sink holes.

oh, but to be back in that room again. far away. with cups of tea and questions.

convergence.

and an interpreter. 

stillness and action.

i'm thinking a lot about inhabiting. about abiding and standing solid in one place for a while. about sifting through ideas and about moving forward from a map. one that i've created and that, after some deep contemplation, outlines the places that i'd like to go. every message i am getting right now is to sit down and list, outline, brainstorm, seek counsel and decide. stay home. and i am aware of how difficult this really is for me.

it seems that i am much more comfortable with the comings and goings. the falling offs and the getting back ups. the airplane and the train. the move to the next house. the growth spurt and even the tears on the therapist's couch. i'm your girl in a crisis. i thrive, and am calm, when the directive is obvious. the thing needing tending is bleeding. or departing at half past eight. but when the call from the ethers is to be discerning, to take a step back and settle into a routine for a while, to sift and sort the contents of dresser drawers and the archives of internal inspirations, to define the trajectory: this is where i get anxious. this is where i begin to doubt. this is where i, historically, have failed to take action.

the intriguing chris guillebeau wrote today about the divide between thinking of doing something and doing it. about how our intentions, though thoughtful and pure, are not what makes a difference. i really heard him. i mean to do a lot of really great things. many of them don't ever get done.

so now it is time for me to act. but the kind of action i am called to take is from that still point (if that makes sense). it is action with roots. action with contemplation. action that is based on knowing. it is action that involves things like sending more money to haiti. filling in susannah's fabulous worksheets. reading a few instruction manuals. showing up for the people i love. i'll write thank you notes. organize receipts and make flow charts. find my way onto my yoga mat and give the dog a bath. finish overdue tasks, make soups and volunteer in schools. and, alas, i will define my project (notice how that one comes up last).

i know that in order to take right action, i  need to sit still for a while. something i really don't like to do. something that asks more of me that i usually care to give to myself. (i'd really rather be in haiti right now, digging through rubble). sitting still is hard. because it is the work. because it means i have to trust myself. BE with myself. let my own ideas guide me. and maybe listen to truths that i don't want to hear. 

(this is what happens when you choose CLEAR as your guiding word of the year)

changed.

what have i got to share? that i'm home now? that i am sitting at my desk while the rain falls outside, wondering if anything i could possibly write will do justice to the rattles and inklings and earthquakes and hungers that i am bringing attention to? i am full. and connected. quiet and conscious. tired and a little sick. wanting to help. and hug. and feed and tend and heal. all while longing for scent and touch and hot soup (with extra pepper). to embody what it is to gather and capture the grace of humanity, in all its unleashed sarcastic vulgarity, meeting divinity and the lights that show up when the switch is turned off.

all i have to share is myself. clouds parting and becoming ever more clear of my purpose. twisted and stretched out, taking ever more solidly a new form. one that claims space, is without abandon, and waits, to be sure, before saying yes. to be sure of intention, of integrity, of discernment, of knowingness.

the week i spent in england changed me. not from something i wasn't, but more into something i already was. i learned that acceptance, joy, and the finest of living, does not have to leave one indebted. quite the opposite, these things are freely gifted when the right door is opened.

sas (the truth), leonie (the wise), penny (the mystic), jo (the conduit), megg (the wings), susannah (the muse), and emma (the grace): you are the champagne, the toast, the darkest chocolate, the wit, the fortune, the prediction, the song, the healing, and the warmest hand-knit knee socks a girl could ever dream of resting in.

i love you.

a return.

the remainder of this journey has been off-line.

a return to the inner-net, no pretense, tangible stuff.

i've been retreating.

(in an enchanted cottage)

kind of like being in a toast catalog.

while feasting on hearts, on light, on bounty.

(and incredible amounts of tea and chocolate)

in the company of the realest of real.

truth telling, irreverent laughter, a little wickedness, tangled hands, and bottomless depth.

 

and so it goes.

from toasting crumpets in the fire (really)

to time-travel on a plane once again tomorrow.

with a hard-drive full of images and days of stories to spin.

and a clarity and readiness to meet this new year as i will.

(more to share from the other side of the pond)

london: day two.

i had planned to visit a cathedral this morning. you know, that big one here in london. but instead i am sitting alone in her home, enveloped in quiet, somewhat inert, missing my loves, and being with it all. it's like stillness found me, grabbed onto my company, rendered me without mojo, and is washing me over with reflection. i'm sure hormones and the treadmill of travel have taken their toll on my energy, too. no matter the mix, i am here. in this moment. with a tincture of tenderness and tiredness and permissiveness at play.

i knew that this trip was to be more about people than place. of course, i was excited to see london. i walked for hours yesterday taking in as much as i could. but it is the people i am connecting with here that snowballed this journey from flip suggestion to arrival and home cooked meals. it is interesting to me that with so much reassurance and confirmation, that i can sit here in this moment doubting my worthiness of it all. even in the rapture of feeling so completely in love with these new (old) friends, the mind and heart battle rages on. i catch myself questioning whether this project of opening doors, seeking travel, beauty and connection, is something i've manipulated or something that i merely asked for (in that grand, howl to the universe, prayer kind of way) and the details unfolded as they did. i know it is the latter, but it astounds me how deeply the groans of self-doubt can penetrate. how i can question even my own honesty with myself in anticipation of what i think "other" may be thinking of me and what i am doing. i suppose it is no different than any other small crises of faith. when the love pours in, and we feel seen-through, we wonder how long it could possibly last, when the other shoe will drop, what will happen when the next curtain is pulled back.

i leave one home to visit another today, and i'll be taking in the english landscape from the window of a train between here and there. i have no doubt that, when i gaze into the eyes of this next new friend, these feelings will wash over me just as they've done here.

so i'll sit a little longer in the quiet. let the softness i feel right now rest squarely on my shoulders, the vulnerability linger in my chest. i'll miss the familiar, my babes, my man.  let myself be a little frightened and unsure. and i will prepare, with an expansive breath into the heart, for what is to come. which is exactly what i asked for.

snowy london day.

 

 

 

 

ambition and choosing.

girl from Shampura village, Ajmer, India, September 2009

it's always a choice, you know?

to think ourselves fools or to love ourselves real.

to take ourselves seriously-in even the smallest of ways.

to look one another in the eye. wrap fingers, kiss bones.

deserving. meeting. faithful. visceral. anger and angst. quest and yearning.

to own and to make right.

to slip truths into our shopping carts and under our clothes.

to knead vastness into our bread, risen and alive,

and sanctuary into our cups full of wine.

clutching. limp. revealed and seeing.

alone. one.

choosing free.

off today on a journey to the UK that is sure to be full of surprises. open, a little tender, at the leaving.  loving my babes, and my partner, and holding dear the nest alongside the wings.  it is surely all beautiful. will be blogging as it unfolds. in the meantime, i must share this (rather poor) photo below, taken saturday (with the iphone) of  a rainless rainbow in a pink sky at dusk: what i choose to call magic.