Priceless

So because I’m nursing what is shaping up to perhaps be a combination of carpal tunnel syndrome, tennis elbow with maybe a bit of tendentious thrown in for good measure, I did something quite unusual this morning. I left my Canon at home and headed out onto the prairie and around the lake with nothing but my little Sony Cybershot DSC-N2 (and Simba, of course). I think I’ve underrated the little point and shoot. It’s 10.1 megapix and can surprise me with what it can do. Granted the images aren’t what I can capture with a dslr, but they’re not bad.

And my arm is thanking me for the reprieve. I’m thanking God we have a massage therapist in the family… I start treatment next week.

But this is no time for me to become handicapped. I hesitate to say that my “career” might just be on the cusp of taking off, but things are picking up for sure. First Wildflowers; now Under the Umbrella. Things come in threes I guess because after a lull in sales in general I sold two prints at Solera yesterday. I’m taking it all as a sign that I need to [for lack of a less cliché phrase] strike while the iron is hot. I know exactly the area I’m going to explore next.

After some early experiences that didn’t turn out quite so well as recent ones, I was reluctant about promoting myself. I’m slowly gaining some confidence. And I do need to pull out that “Chicken Soup for the Soul” edition with the lists of all the famous people (Walt Disney comes to mind, not to mention Mark Hansen and Jack Canfield themselves) who failed several times before reaching their goals of success.

Success is all relative; it means different things to different people. For me it’s all about the validation that has eluded me all my life. Making a few buckaroos along the way would be nice.

But feeling I’m worthy;

that I’ve done something of value with my life and someone acknowledges that;

that maybe – just maybe – I have a thimbleful of talent and I’m not as dumb as my Dad told me I was as I was growing up ~ well…

you can’t put a price on that.

Winds of Change

Autumn always brings changes in me. Typically it’s just a nesting instinct ~ that feeling of wanting to settle in, hunker down, get domestic and all cozy as the weather turns cooler and the days shorter. Bring out the crochet hook and the yarn (yes I crochet! Not very well and I’m trying to remember how to make a turn, but dammit, I can do stuff!). The crockpot finds its way down from the top shelf and takes up a semi-permanent spot on the kitchen counter. The stack of unread books that has grown taller all summer is showing some movement as reading becomes a favorite pastime again. Bedtime arrives earlier and sleeping in, a regular thing.

In other words, hibernation sets in and the casual and easy socialization that comes with summer gets tucked away with the deck umbrella.

This year I’m feeling something different, though. So different I don’t even know what it is. Of course my whole life has done a 180 since I moved into this house and this neighborhood 5 months ago. Most of its good and long overdue; some of it has me questioning my life. So I guess it is the questions – and the opportunities and the potential? – that are on my mind lately. Change can be good… really good. But it is seldom easy. Shouldn’t I be happier?

So as the seasons change and I prepare to enter another Winter of my life, I find myself wondering where I will be – who I will be - when we come out on the other side in Spring…

Don 't Call Me in January

I’ve been a really bad, bad blogger. And a really, really bad blog-friend. Which is probably why I’ll never have a career as a writer. And I have an even worse one as a friend. One actually requires writing on a daily basis; the other a reciprocal line of communication more than once every 6 weeks. Both seem to be something I can’t become disciplined to do. Life keeps getting in the way.

Is it just me or has every frickin’ person we’ve ever known decided to show up in our lives in the last 5 months?

And on that note, I’m about “hostsessed” out. I do love entertaining and I do love sharing our new home and I do love seeing people I haven’t seen in years, but I’m weary. And I miss my life. It seems all I’ve done all summer is pick up clutter, dust furniture, plan menus, camp out at the local grocery, Costco and Discount Liquor, cook and clean up. Actually since moving in May I haven’t had time to figure out what my life will be in this new place. I love having my own space – my own physical space to work and think and play and just be. The problem is – I haven’t had much time to actually be, let alone be in my own space.

So this Monday morning at 4:30 am finds me sitting here in my own space in kind of a crappy mood after another weekend of non-stop entertaining and socializing, with a couple more days to go. It finds us with short tempers and tense moments and just wanting to be left alone.

It finds me with a list of ideas I’m excited to get to – you know, those ideas that come to you on a walk in the woods… or at 4:00 in the morning when you can’t sleep because you went to bed angry w/your spouse - but don’t seem to have the time to actually get to. The Umbrella Project really spurred my imagination and I’m anxious to explore a couple more ideas. But it seems I just get inspired and just get started and I have to stop.

After Wednesday I’ll have exactly two weeks to implement my inspired moments before I don my hostess apron again. Three days of smiling and offering drinks and serving dinner and I’ll have exactly 2 ½ weeks before I’m packing a suitcase and boarding a plane, this time jetting off to spend time with yet more family. (And why is it I anticipate at least at some point in those four days short tempers and tense moments and wanting to be left alone will enter into the scenario…)

Returning from that trip I will have 2 weeks before I am entertaining once more for the holidays. And then Christmas arrives 4 weeks later.

Lest I be labeled as a “people hater,” I assure you I’m not. I enjoy my friends and family immensely. It’s just been a lot this year. A whole lot. And the artist in me cries out for my space ~ literally and figuratively.

Typically January, after all the excitement and fun of the holidays, is a letdown for me. This year I find myself looking forward to it…

I love ya’, but don’t call me in January.

I Would Miss You All My Life...

I would miss you all my life.

That’s what I thought the other day when the mister did something that annoyed me. It wasn’t my first thought, but it evolved to that.

I would miss you all my life.

You know what they say. They say that when you feel annoyed with your spouse over little things you should remember what attracted you to them in the first place and focus on that.

Ok. If you weren't in my life...

Damn. I would miss you.

When I went home after meeting him for the first time, I wrote in my journal - He talked more than any other guy I had ever met; he told great stories and asked great questions. After our first date I wrote - He was charming… he said all the right things. “I love walking out of a restaurant behind you because every guy in the place is looking at you. And I think to myself, ‘Yeah. She’s with me.’” (Ok, he was part bullshit, too, but it was charming at the time. It worked, didn’t it???)

I love to laugh and he made me laugh. A lot. O, god, he made me laugh.

As we got to know one another, I wrote - He made anyone he encountered want to be where he was, experience what he had experienced. He was a magnet. He was caring and giving – and he showed it. He was handsome – huge brown eyes, jet black hair w/a hint of grey. He was adorable. He was a living teddy bear. A couple of months into it, I wrote - He was a great hugger and a sweet kisser. He loved my cat – and he wasn’t a cat person. A few months later, I wrote - He insisted I phoned my parents every weekend; up until meeting him I rarely called.

You get the picture.

So no matter how many socks I trip over; how many coffee cups I wash; how many nights he works late... like 18 hour days; how many times he drives me nuts w/questions and observances (see - it comes back to haunt you!); how many times I roll my eyes… if he wasn’t in my life I would always have wondered…

What stories are you telling?
Where have you been?
What are you doing now?
Whose cat are you snuggling?
Who are you charming?
Who are you loving…

I know he won’t read this, but thanks for 16 years of an interesting life.

I would have missed you all my life.

Freeze Frame

So here’s the Question of the Week:

What’s up with two requests in as many days for me to do portrait photography??? I mean it usually is the first question out of people’s mouths when they learn I’m a photographer, because I think most non-photog type people can’t really picture (ha) any other kind of photography. I mean, if you don’t take pictures of people, what else is there? (My first thought ~ "Ummm… like the whole Universe." Second thought ~ Ansel Adams response to those who said, "But there are no people in these pictures." He said, "O, but there are. The photographer and the viewer.) So they just naturally assume you shoot people. But what’s different about this is, these requests came after people viewed what seems to be developing into (ha! another photo pun) my very unintentional portfolio – otherwise known as my son and daughter-in-love’s wedding photos. Never in 500 years did I imagine anyone would look at those and think, “Wow. She could do our family portrait.” Never.

But that is exactly what has happened. I had lunch with a friend I see probably once a year and of course as we reviewed the happenings of the past year, I shared wedding photographs. She loved the style in which they were shot – candidly and trying my best to catch people being themselves. She asked me four times to do a casual, candid shoot with her family – she, her husband and two darling little boys. Last night (after the wedding photos made the rounds at a neighborhood party) a woman I know only slightly asked if I would take a portrait of her family – if she could ever get her four kids together at one time.

I’m stunned. Literally. Kind of frozen in place. And wondering if this is something I should say “Yes” to. You know the ol’ story about The Universe/God trying to get your attention? It starts with a whisper, then a tap on your shoulder, then a brick thrown at your head. The tap is getting stronger and a little more consistent and a little harder to ignore. Where it was easy for me to say a quick and unequivocal “No!” before, I hesitate now. These are people who have seen my work (which wasn’t work at all because I absolutely loved capturing the moments of that once-in-a-lifetime day…) and they think it’s good. Again, I’m stunned. Speechless. I’ve had nothing but positive feedback from the wedding photos. I’m certainly not saying I’ll become a wedding or portrait photog because I’m not trained in that and would never want the stress and I still consider myself a rank amateur in any genre of photography! But I find myself needing to respond to people who have seen - quite literally in black and white - what I have done. And I’m whispering to them in my head as they are talking with me, “Listen, folks, you really need to set your bar higher…”

But, the more positive feedback I get, the more I think back to that once-in-a-lifetime day and remember how much fun I had doing the candids (and if I listen to The Universe ~ what does THAT tell me??). The “formal” shots were a little stressful for me ~ for a number of reasons that really had nothing to do with photography; but the candids ~ catching people in the act of being themselves? I loved. Hanging on the outskirts observing, watching, quietly interacting? My God! That’s what I’ve been doing my whole life! It’s what I do best!!

So I’m remembering that feeling and wondering how I could incorporate that into family photographs and make some memories that people would reflect upon with a smile. I have found that, over the years, the photographs I have taken that wrap around my heart won’t win any prizes for photographic genius. But I remember the time of day, the way the sun hit the ocean, or the mountain or his face; the conversation, what I was wearing, the fragrance of lilacs or freshly baked bread or his cologne in the air… That’s the kind of “portrait” photographer I am. If people can “get” that and be happy with that; if they know up front what I do and why I do it and they like “my style”… well, yeah, maybe – just maybe – I could shoot people.

So my response to the two requests to do family portraits was a wishy-washy “Maybe; let’s talk....”

At least it’s not an unequivocal “No!” *wink*