The 'I's have it...

Each one of us is important in our own way. We are all valuable. We must remember to love ourselves.

How do you determine if you are a lovable person? Is it the love you receive and feel from others or is it that which comes from inside? Is there a difference? Could it just be that the love of self is sent out into the world and others experience it and decide that you are indeed worthy of love? What happens when these two concepts collide? or cancel each other out and you feel unlovable? Can one person really destroy that within you? If so, how is that possible, without you having already destroyed the internal love?

I spend a good portion of my time caring for others- be it my husband, cats, parents, co-workers, condo unit owners, clients, etc. Often, I forget to take care of myself. I have decided to challenge myself to paying more attention to me and my needs. This is difficult because it is not in my nature and can be seen as selfish. I am lovable and should respect that within myself. With this paying attention to me period, I have started by eliminating certain "jobs." I have resigned from my condo board, stopped taking on excessive amounts of volunteer work, stopped over-working and started enjoying new things. I started a screen printing class at a local art studio and picked up the fiddle. I am still out shooting, but had some computer equipment failure. Hopefully that will be fixed this evening so I will have new photos to share soon. It will be fun to see what happens with this little experiment. Hope you enjoy the ride with me. Have a great day everyone!

The lens in which we see ourselves

"When you have discovered disappointment as the guide to yourself, you will be eager to learn how much you are disappointed about yourself: about the lack of courage and inadequate honesty, or about the horribly narrow borders drawn by your own feelings, acts, and sayings. What was it we expected and hoped from ourselves? That we are boundless, or quite different than we are?"

(Mercier- Night Train to Lisbon)

Beautifully put sentiment. We are who we choose to be and with what lens we want to see ourselves. No one can change us, only we can change ourselves.

When we look in the mirror-we should remember that we created the person looking back at us. Each action/reaction taken by us shapes our lives, our person. If one is not happy with one's self, it is up to that individual to change it. No one else can change the person we are- all another can do is allow us to bask in his/her light. If one's soul is black, the light of another will not be reflected. Instead, the other will absorb the light until there is nothing left to take and then will return to his/her previous state of being. I would rather share my own radiance than bask in another's without having the ability to share mine in return.

Finding Treasures

Last week I came across an undeveloped roll of film- this is not necessarily surprising for me. I have a tendency of squirreling away used film rolls around the house. It is not that I want to lose the photos, it just happens that I forget that I put them in a "safe place"... you know how that goes- the
"safe place" a/k/a the place I will most likely forget. Anyway, I took the roll in and, lo and behold, I received back photos from a trip to a Michigan vineyard with good friends and a visit from my sister-in-law.

Finding this roll is like finding a treasure or opening a time capsule. It brought back memories of a very happy summer. A happy time. I enjoy when photographs can give cues to welcome back those happy feelings especially at times when I am feeling a bit blue. It was a nice reminder that happiness, even though it can be fleeting, can be captured and live on. Life can be breathed back into it- fill its sails for one more go 'round. Cheers!

Love is Blind

We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love - first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage. -- Albert Camus

Is love truly blind? ...or is true love that in which all the faults of your counterpart are revealed and you still love them? I believe the latter. When we love blindly, we are loving the idea of the other person, not the person. If you love the person you are less likely to be disappointed... we are all human and with that, falliable.

Love like your life depends on it.

The Carnival

Over the Memorial Day weekend, I ventured out to a nearby carnival. It grew out of a deserted school parking lot looking broken and, yet, oddly glamorous. The flash and glitter of the lights and quick movement of the dilapidated rides caught the eyes of the drivers-by as well any children in its line of view.

Carnivals bring out all walks of life- from the present child to the child within; each sees the magic of the flashy rides and can taste the telltale signs of summer.

As an observer, I enjoyed watching all the young teenagers with their carefree hair and carefree gestures. So wrapped up in just being. There was a time when hanging out meant so much more than doing anything else-believing the world is theirs for the taking. That time goes by so fast it is almost as if it was a dream, a prelude to real life, the adult life. I wish those teenagers well. I wish for them to keep the excitement and the appreciation of just being.

in the light

Here is a little poem I recently threw together. Hope you enjoy.

Hold me to the point of crushing

Suffocate the dark horses of my mind

Racing, racing into nothingness

Racing into the spaces where I hide

Keep me in the light of day

Don’t allow night to fall

Bring me through this, with you