the single moment...

I remember many years ago looking at a National Geographic magazine and one of the photographs was an award winning image taken in Ethiopia. It was part of a collection intended to profile those enduring the famines in Africa. It was sad.

This picture in particular was of a small child that had been on route to a shelter and collapsed part way. Curled up in the fetal position, the child just laid there naked on the cracked, dry soil while vultures flew up above and waited for him to die. I remember thinking how devastating it must have been for that photographer to watch this moment…to be a part of this moment…to capture this moment.

It compelled me to read up on the photographer a bit and as it turned out, the photographers on site were actually given very strict orders not to touch any of the children as their immune systems were so depleted that even the most harmless of our germs could cause serious illness. It broke my heart to read it and without a doubt, it was even more excruciating to witness in person. The photograph ended up winning one of the world’s most prestigious awards and shortly there after, the photographer killed himself. The guilt and grief of having to watch this child die was more than his soul could handle.

I remember telling myself afterwards that if I were ever so privileged as to capture moments that intimate…I would pray that God would let them be moments of joy instead. As I take more pictures, I also realize a bit more that there are moments in which I feel I should look away; moments that seem too private for me to be seeing them through a lens. That being said though…those are also the moments that make being there such a gift…being there to take a split second and turn it into something eternal. That is why I love photography.

That is also why I love this picture that I captured of my dear friend and her daughter over the weekend; what an honour to be present during this brief moment…

caught in the act...

I was working on my photography website yesterday (did I mention that I was creating one? It will soon be here!), and as I was playing around with the design of the “about me” page, I realized that I didn’t have any good pictures of me with a camera! That’s kind of the thing with being the photographer…you’re generally behind the camera!

Low and behold though, Christina sent these to me this morning; “action shots” from our weekend in Toronto! Talk about aiming to please!!

{Christina…I would also like a million dollars!}

So here they are…the first shots of me getting down and dirty for my craft! It’s such a hard life being surrounded by beautiful people…

a day at the distillery...

Toronto; an economic powerhouse for our country; our provincial capital; a tourist hotspot and despite having spent quite a bit of time there when I was young, it’s also a city that I’m not a big fan of! We used to travel there often when I was a little girl to visit family and even now, decades later, I still feel the same way; too big, too busy, too many people who should be in anger management classes instead of behind the wheel! That being said, I’ve driven through it…but seldom ever send a postcard!

I have a problem now though…over the past years, months, days…the city has taken a number of the people that I love hostage!!! Whether it be due to family, work or a combination of the two, one by one, they are being plucked from me and taken to Toronto!! And because I love my friends more than I dislike Toronto, I felt that it was time for a little truce!!!!

So this past weekend, I packed up our car and made the four hour drive to visit my nearest and dearest! Because there were so many of us coming from different directions, the big question was “what do we do for the one afternoon that we have together?” Our question was easily answered by suggesting a meeting place in Toronto’s historic Distillery District where all of my friends could play dress up for me and I could spend hours in one of my favourite places…behind the camera!

So we met up at Balzac’s with coffee in hand, ready to make our few hours together rock; Olivia and Josh melted my heart (it wouldn’t be the first time!); Christina and Jason reminded me of how much fun it is to photograph true love; Joanne was her usual stunning self and even though she was plagued with a rotten cold, Sara still made it out to offer her moral support!

Bottom line; my friends are amazing! Some people may make more money than me, have a bigger house than me or have nicer clothes than me…but they don’t have my friends and frankly, they are about as good as they get and so worth braving Toronto traffic for!

Needless to say that an afternoon together just wasn’t enough but thankfully, 325 raw files and four hours of post-production later...we do find ourselves with a little something to remember it by…

For more pictures from our day at the Distillery, click here.

just because she can...

haunted...

Do you believe in ghosts?

I know that we’ve all sat around campfires in our younger days scaring ourselves out of our wits telling urban legends about flesh eating neighbors living under our beds. But now that we’re all a little bit older and wiser, where do we all stand on the whole “spirits lurking among us” thing?!?!

When I was about fifteen years old, I spent my summer at ranch just outside of London. As a counselor in training that year, I had spent nearly two and half months doing everything from kitchen duty, riding instructor and of course, camp counselor for the hundreds of kids that came to stay with us in the woods for weeks at a time.

The ranch was set on 220 acres of land, including wooded areas and cornfields. Each camping area was tucked away in different parts of the ranch to give each group a more private setting once group events were over. There was no doubt that once the sun went down, the ranch was a scary place! Without the light pollution radiating from the city, the ranch was very dark at night and no amount of flashlights ever seemed to make it better!

One night in early August, I was co-counseling a group of eleven year-old girls for two weeks. Each of us counselors were required, throughout each camp session, to take turns monitoring the sites after dark. The girl’s site was the closest to the camp lodge but still far enough away that it would give you a run for your money if you needed to use the washroom in the middle of night. Our site, unlike most of the others, was protected by the shelter of enormous maple trees that had a small clearing just in the middle of them. While this provided a welcome canopy during the rainy days of summer, it also made the perfect home for the many things that go bump in the night. The nocturnal happenings of the woods were certainly more alive under the trees and became one of the scariest places that I endured during my childhood!

Late one night while I happen to be on monitoring duty, another counselor came back to their tent to call it a night. Given that it was going to take her a couple of minutes to settle in, I asked her if she would mind taking over for me while I ran to the lodge to use the washroom and grab a drink. So, flashlight in hand, I took a deep breath and made my way through the dark woods to the lodge. Every step that I took made the leaves and branches crinkle under my feet and my heart start beating a little faster. It was impossible to get around the site without perpetually thinking that someone was trailing close behind you (and, if my imagination had anything to do with it, it was almost always someone of the “knife-wielding-camp-counselor-abducting” disposition!).

Ten minutes later, I arrived back at the site unharmed and unwilling to return to the lodge regardless of how much my bladder needed it! I quickly went to my co-counselor’s tent to let her know that I had returned and that she was free to peacefully head off to dreamland for the night. Just as I about to pull back the thick canvas flap of her tent, I was startled by a young girl standing right next to me in front of the tent. She was young…too young (maybe eight years-old or so), with long dark hair, extremely sad eyes and a long white night gown nearly reaching the ground. I looked over at her, puzzled as to how she could have sneaked up on me so unexpectedly, and quietly said to her “stay here for one second and I’ll take you back to your tent”.

Desperately wanting to return the little girl to her bed, I quickly poked my head in the tent to let my colleague know that I returned and no more than ten seconds later, I closed the tent flap, turned to take the little girl’s hand and realized that she was gone. She was nowhere to be seen. I glanced around and there was no sight of her. I hadn’t heard her move or enter her tent. She was just…gone.

I didn’t think too much of it at the time but the next morning, as I looked around at the campers during breakfast, I noticed that there wasn’t anyone bearing the same resemblance as her. No one with long, dark hair like hers and certainly no one that looked that young. When I asked around to other counselors, no one remembers any of their campers having any white, frilly nightgowns either. In fact, the standard response was “who would send their kid to camp with something like that anyways?!?!”

Good question. I would have said the same thing myself had I not seen it with my own eyes.

I’ll admit, my eyes could have playing tricks on me and it might not have been real. But it felt real and my brain thought it was real enough for me to actually speak to whatever it was that I was looking at. I’ll also admit that maybe there was in fact a little girl standing there and that in the light of day, every thing just looked different. I honestly don’t know. All I know is that even now, fifteen years later, I still think about it, still believe it and most certainly…still get a little weary of little girls in white dresses!!!

strategic planning...

I’ve been emailing a bit with an old friend of mine from Toronto lately and we’ve been chatting a lot about the transitions of life; the crossroads that we unexpectedly find ourselves at and the options that those crossroads end up leaving us with. In the midst of it all, we’ve found ourselves discussing a lot about what we would like to do and who we would like to become.

I’ve been raised in an environment that is big on “five year plans”. We’ve always been looking ahead, dreaming big and planning ourselves into oblivion...and I’m certainly no exception! I’ve always believed that this is an incredibly important thing to teach young people because an adolescent’s inability to have foresight can end up being a rather inescapable trap later in life (just ask the $10,000 that I spent in three months during my first semester at university!). It’s important to have vision and to see the possibilities of your life…I think in a lot of instances it’s what gets many of us through the day. It sounds cynical but we are a society of planners and many of us live our lives doing nothing but planning! We plan vacations and investments, weddings and family, weekends and retirement. And not only is this not a bad thing but in many ways, it’s a necessary thing. But when exactly do we cross over from planning our lives to outright living our lives waiting and anticipation?

The more my friend and I discussed our future goals and our long term vision, the more I wondered if my constant need to plan is in some ways a detriment to my present fulfillment? In recent years especially, I’ve been working at redefining my life in many ways and much of that involves a great deal of change on my part. Change is good and in my case, change was life saving but I think I’m realizing that there’s also something to be said for acknowledging your present circumstances.

As I write this I recognize the irony of the fact that I expect those that I share my life with to accept me the way I am…so why shouldn’t I do the same? Perhaps the pursuit of betterment is best achieved by embracing where you currently reside in life in order to better appreciate where you are going.

Having said this, maybe it’s okay that I’m no longer in marathon shape or that I don’t think I’m suited to sitting at a computer all day long. Maybe it’s okay that I love my morning coffee and that the colour yellow scares me. Maybe it’s okay that I look (and feel!) more tired than I would like to and maybe it’s okay to be overwhelmed by my current learning curve. Maybe it’s okay that I love Cadbury mini eggs and don’t like purple foods (except purple mini eggs!). Maybe it’s okay that I love watching reruns of Sex & the City and don’t fully comprehend the problems of the world. Maybe it’s okay that I don’t understand why our remote control has to have so many buttons and I think math is hard. Maybe it’s okay that I’m moved by beautiful things and that I often judge a book by its cover (literally!). Maybe it’s okay that I still want to do great things with my life and it’s okay to think that I already have. Maybe it’s okay to not like flying over the ocean and it’s okay to enjoy playing with fire (but it’s not okay to do so in the house!). Maybe it’s okay that I didn’t survive the entire season of Lent and maybe it’s okay that I never really wanted to to begin with. Maybe it’s okay that I wish music played in the background every time I walked outside. Maybe it’s okay that I don’t like to get dirty but I like to leave my clothes on the floor. Maybe it’s okay for me to feel insecure sometimes and to want to be different. Maybe it’s okay to be torn between faith and religion and it’s okay to ask why. Maybe it’s okay to wish you were here and wonder why you’re not. Maybe it’s okay for me to believe in magic, miracles and astrology all at the same time.

And maybe…just maybe…in order for me to become the me that I want to be tomorrow…I need to embrace the me that I am today.

in conclusion...

I’ve decided that giving up coffee for Lent is stupid!

What was I thinking? Seriously…

The world is in no way a better place because I don’t have a peppermint mocha in my hand.

Honestly…who came up with this crappy idea in the first place?!?!

Feel free to judge my lack of discipline if you like but frankly...what's good for my mental health is, by default, good for your mental health!!!

let's get it on...

I was going through some old cds a few weekends ago and came upon a mix that a guy had once made for me back in the day! I actually remember getting it in the mail one afternoon at work with a little note attached to it that said “Will you have dinner with me on Friday night?”

I had met him at a bar the previous weekend while out with some friends and we started talking about music. Somehow, our conversation shifted to a debate about what constitutes the very best “make-out music”. I voted for rock music and he argued melodic R&B tunes were the only way to go. Three days later, he pleaded his case with an invitation to dinner! I’ll admit…it was such a cute approach and it’s very possible that he may have slightly won me over in the end!

Coming across his cd recently sparked the question in my mind again. I still think that rock music prevails when it comes to making out but there’s also no denying that some people’s clothes seem to spontaneously vanish just listening to Marvin Gaye (he's just that good!)! And so I wonder…what are the ultimate make-out songs??

I wondered so much in fact that I felt compelled to create my own top ten list of make-out songs! Feel free to use it anytime if you’re thinking of asking someone out for dinner!!!

In no particular order…

1. Witness by Sarah McLachlan
2. Disarm by The Smashing Pumpkins
3. Creep by Stone Temple Pilots
4. Destiny by Zero Seven
5. Breakdown by Seether
6. With or Without You by U2
7. The Red by Chevelle
8. It’s Been Awhile by Staind
9. Save Yourself by Sensefield
10. Soul to Squeeze by Red Hot Chili Peppers

my helium...

I’m starting to wonder if I’m in the wrong line of work!

A while back (a long while!), I wrote a post about how I joined the online writer’s network called Helium. It’s a place for writers to go, submit their work and have it rated by their peers. All pieces are anonymously and randomly rated within the category that it was submitted to and other writers can comment as they rate. It’s really a great tool for receiving objective feedback about your craft.

The best part is that Helium is also used as a marketplace for publishers who don’t want to wait for submissions. Writers are “classified” based on their writing statistics (which is determined by your overall ratings) and this enables publishers to browse articles classified by any number of calibers. It’s truly a very intricate and incredibly large network of critiquing that allows writers to determine which of their peers they feel have the most merit. I always find myself feeling a little bit bad when I rate someone’s work because as far as I’m concerned, just contributing to the craft earns merit in and of itself.

So, after submitting my initial two articles to Helium, I got distracted by life and didn’t really end up going back. A couple of weeks ago I decided to dust off my username and jump back into the game. In turn, I felt ambitious and submitted another ten articles!

I think that I should take this opportunity to mention that I don’t really enjoy criticism very much!!! While some people go out of their way to receive feedback on their contributions to the world…I prefer to go on the basis of “no news is good news!” So the idea of submitting work for the sole purpose of it being critiqued does leave me in a frenzy of anxiety!! Every time I type in my password to log onto my account, my heart starts beating a little faster, the breath quickens and I find myself wondering why exactly I ever thought that this was a good idea!

I braved all of my physiological responses yesterday though and logged back on to my account. As it turns out, the gods of “pick one or the other” seemed to be in my favour and it appears that I may have missed my calling; not only have my articles been really well received by my peers but three of them have been ranked as the top article in their category (two of those being book reviews!)!

Yesterday’s blog post is ranked second as of this morning and this article is currently ranked 5th out of 105 submitted articles. And if that weren’t enough…I’ve been named as one of Helium’s Premium Writers, the highest honour given to Helium writers for visiting publishers searching the marketplace.

I’ve never actually submitted any work for publication before but I’m starting to wonder if it might be worth my while to do so!

It would be like sweet retribution for all the times that no one wanted me on their team for trivial pursuit!!!

breaking up is hard to do...

Last night, on our way home from work, we were listening to the radio when some commercial came on for a local company. The name of the company was also the last name of a guy that I dated back in University so I couldn’t help but wonder how he was doing. We hadn’t really seen each other since we stopped dating so I had no idea what he had been up to for the past decade. In this day and age, the first obvious place to look was facebook and sure enough, there he was, skydiving in his profile picture!!

Needless to say that it was a lot of fun catching up on his life in recent years. It’s equally hard to believe that this was a guy I met at a restaurant one day who ended up bringing me a dozen roses…a guy that I had to write theories of communications papers with and whose phone calls gave me butterflies. Now, here I was looking at pictures of his daughter (who, might I add, is among the most stunning little girls that I’ve ever seen!) and sharing stories of our weddings. My, how we’ve grown!

Catching up with him kind of made me think of how similar facebook is to the real world of dating in some ways; it’s our social resume for the new generation! Kind of like when he and I first started dating, facebook is about showing our best side to the world; it’s a tally of our best pictures, golden moments, glowing achievements and of course, visual proof of our social acceptance in the world (the more “friends” the better, right?). I was hesitant to join facebook for a long time…but it just kept calling me over and over again! Even though I said no, I felt the need to give it a chance…after all, persistence is flattering!

The beginning of my relationship with facebook was just like any new relationship; countless hours spent together at night learning all about each other… weeks go by and you realized that you haven’t done your laundry or spoken to any of your family. Eventually, you discover that you’re knee deep in lust and the addiction is intoxicating. Before long you find that you can’t go more than a couple of hours without getting your fix!!! Now here we are, two years later and still going strong!!!! Or is it? Many relationships look prettier from the outside and it’s certainly easy to make life appear delightful through the eyes of our daily status!

It took me a little while to figure it out but my relationship with facebook provided a rather false sense of connection. It turns out that facebook was a bit of a player!! “It’s complicated” as they would say but to be fair, who doesn’t love getting two hundred birthday wishes on your wall?!?! It wasn’t until one day when my seemingly innocent status got used as a reason to create drama that I realized I needed to break up with facebook to some extent. The same way my old flame and I hadn’t really worked out in the end, I found that facebook and I needed to talk. “It’s not you…it’s me”, I said! Of course I was lured by its memories of days gone by and endless possibilities. The seduction of so many pictures and a wall full of validation is hard to resist…but it was time! So I did the great purge…the cleansing of my social circle from 300+ “friends” to the 50 people that would understand that “you’re sweet like candy to my soul” is really a nod to Dave Matthews and a not a secret invitation to run away to Mexico with me! Parting ways is never easy…especially when you’ve had as much fun as we have, so I’ve agreed to still have a date or two. We even spent a good twenty minutes together before work this morning! What can I say…attraction is hard to get over sometimes!

So I guess you could say that facebook and I are still seeing each other from time to time, but we’re not exclusive! In fact, I’ve even gone back to using my hotmail account more often, sending snail mail every now and then, and {dare I say it} visiting face to face!!!

But I’ve been very clear that in no way does this constitute cheating on my part!

singing in the rain...

ugh...

It’s raining today. In February.

I’m sure that this may not sound surprising to some but this is Ottawa. It doesn’t rain in Ottawa in February! Normally, we would either be buried in four feet of snow or enduring temperatures that are so cold, it’s not actually able to snow! But it never rains!

I’ve been home sick for the past two days and ending the week on a rainy note seems appropriate in its own lazy and lethargic way. Being sick is really frustrating to me because I’m normally such a busy and active person that the idea of being cooped up and forced to sit on the couch just upsets me! Ironically enough though, in the midst of my healthy, busy life…I often catch myself thinking how dreamy it would be to have an afternoon to just sit on my couch doing nothing. Funny.

Given that I was caged at home, I took the opportunity to watch countless episodes of Sex & the City. I have to admit…it was fun! I started watching it back when I was still single and living on my own. I happen to be at the video store one night when I stumbled upon it. It was a really hot summer night in mid-July and I had just come home from having dinner with some friends. It was already late but for some reason, the night hawk in me felt compelled to stop and rent a video on my way home. I can remember sitting in my sweltering bachelor apartment, with my curtains blowing in the breeze, until all hours of the night. Long after the rest of the neighborhood had gone to sleep, I found myself perched up in my bed with my favourite ice cream in hand, laughing hysterically at the dating mishaps of my new friends.

And so it began. The girls have been a permanent structure in my life ever since and they never fail to remind me of those long summer nights when I lived vicariously through them on the streets of New York City. Of course, watching it curled up with a heating pad and a sore throat isn’t quite the same but it does bring some cheer to an otherwise miserable reason to not be at work!

Thanks girls…you’re fabulous!

ash wednesday...

I was very surprised last week when I got an invitation to attend an Ash Wednesday service at our church. Could it be that Lent was here already? Sure enough, a quick glance at my calendar reminded me that it was indeed that time of year!

I always love Lent. I consider it a bit of a “second chance” for all of the resolutions that fail to last much beyond February! It was six years ago that I did my first communion in the Catholic Church and Lent was the last stretch of a year spent contemplating and questioning.

I get asked a lot why I chose to do such a thing as an adult. So many people are turned off by the church and for those that weren’t raised in religious families; it seems even harder for them to comprehend why I would make the conscious decision to pursue religion at all.

The only answer that I can provide is that I didn’t choose the Catholic Church…it chose me.

As “vague” as that may sound…it’s true! I used to go into churches all the time when I was young. I would sneak in when no one else was there and just sit in the pews for as long as I could. I was captivated by the silence and the peacefulness. I felt as though it literally radiated grace.

It didn’t go to my first Mass until the year prior to my communion and after that, there was no turning back. I proceeded to spend the next year preparing myself to join the church. It wasn’t always an easy road; some days I left in tears and other times I left in doubt but at the end of the day, the month, the year…I left a better person. I wasn’t just a better person for having followed through but more so for having challenged myself along the way.

I find that a lot of people bail on things at the first sight of imperfection; the first tinge of uncertainty or conflict, whether it be internally or not. I think that we tend to surround ourselves with things that support our beliefs and not often enough, allow someone or something to question the very things that hold us together. The more challenged I was…the stronger my conviction became, though certainly not without plenty of consideration. Some issues were harder (and still are) to grapple with than others but ultimately…it is an imperfect institution made of imperfect people that has made me, a better person.

But alas, I digress…

Lent is here and it’s time to pull out the more disciplined side of our selves, which for me, isn’t always easy! I’m a girl who really responds well to structure and limits but deprivation…not so much! Even though it’s only forty days, the very thought of what I’m not allowed to have tends to leave me craving it even more. Though I suppose that is indeed the entire point! I’ve decided to give up coffee this year for Lent. Believe me, I’m not thrilled about this but I feel the need to make up for our lack of participation during last year’s Lenten season! It was almost shameful how indulgent we were last year! Between our house, our trip and all the wonderful food in between...it may have actually become the first official "anti-Lent"! Truth be told, while I certainly love my morning mocha on the way to work, I’m also eager to give my body a break from the artificial vitality that comes with coffee. I figured that with all of the other changes I’m making in my life right now, letting my body go back to it’s natural rhythm for a while seems appropriate.

Now, I say this having been only two days into Lent…but we’ll see how delightful an idea it really is in another two weeks!!! We’ll also see how delighted my co-workers are with the idea in two weeks!!!

I think that there was a reason why Jesus spent forty days in the desert alone…

the confidence of youth...

Did you know that I used to figure skate when I was younger?

I have been in love with the sport for as long as I could remember. As a little girl, I found myself mesmerized by the elegance of such a sport. I just couldn’t get enough of the speed, the gracefulness, the music…it seemed like the perfect union of art and athleticism, and it was certainly all too much for my little self to bear. So I started skating.

I have a picture of myself as a child bundled up in my snow suit, delicately balancing myself on the ice and having the biggest smile a four year old could possibly muster up. It turned out to be just one of many photos proving that being on the ice was one of my happiest places.

I spent a good few years skating as much as I could get away with; I would watch countless hours of tapes so I could see spins and jumps in slow motion; During high school, we had an outdoor rink across the street from us and any moment that wasn’t spent in class was spent there; Almost each night of the week, my Mom would drive me around to free skates at various arenas in town and spend two hours in the cold while I spun myself in circles determined to get each move right. Collectively, my parents nurtured my passion as though it was one of their own!

What compels me to think about this though is the fact that I didn’t have a coach or any formal training at all. In fact, just about all the odds for a competitive career were against me; most skaters are very small and petite…I was very tall and lengthy; most skaters start training at six or seven years of age…I was already in high school. And yet, all the while, it never occurred to me that I wouldn’t be able to do it. In fact, I don’t even remember caring at all what the “conventional” course of a skater’s career was…I just wanted to learn.

In time, I did end up getting formally trained and I also spent one evening sharing the ice with some of our country’s most celebrated figure skaters! In time, injury also prevailed and choices had to be made. In the end though, I’m well aware that it was my desire skate and not my fear of failure that enabled my love affair to exist at all.

Looking back, this fascinates me because I’ve discovered that I’ve grown out of this confidence. Sadly, I consider more the probability of something instead of the possibility and I realize now just how dangerous that can be. In my younger days, I just thought “someone has to do it…why not me?” and on I went…and it worked. I propelled myself into a determination that left no other options. It wasn’t necessarily the most conventional or the easiest…but it was my five loaves and two fishes; it’s what I had to offer at the time and God provided the rest.

I’m trying really hard to find that part of me again. My new endeavor, albeit exciting, feels so intimidating and overwhelming sometimes and I just want to find that unwavering conviction that that tells me anything is possible again. Learning something new as an adult seems so much scarier and daunting than it once did, and fear, in and of itself, provides its own obstacle when trying to acquire new knowledge. I feel like everyone around me knows so much more and that the only thing that I really do know…is that I have so much more I need to learn. This isn’t as encouraging a thought as it once was when I had fifteen extra years to learn it!!

Ah well…as Vincent Van Gogh once said “For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.”

more camera happy...

camera happy...

I took this picture yesterday on my way to meet Steve after work. I was passing Major's Hill Park on my way across the river when I felt compelled to stop and get my camera out. What I love most about it is that if I had zoomed out just the tiniest bit, the picture would have been filled with buildings from Gatineau and downtown Ottawa!

I just love our city!

my happiness...

One day when I was about nine or ten years old, I dragged my little cousin out to the local park in our neighborhood with me so I could take pictures. I had been given a dinky little disposable camera earlier that week and I couldn’t wait to use it. My poor cousin was so patient with me and at the tender age of five years old…that’s a lot to ask! The pictures were awful! Truly…they were just terrible! But I continued to love beautiful images and spent my life staring at them longingly.

I have an entire box full of totally random pictures that I’ve pulled out of magazines for the last ten years. I had no reason for keeping them other than the fact that they were beautiful and I couldn’t live without them. Steve and I collect photography from all over the world and have filled our home with images that someone else once saw and thought to capture. Photographs have permeated my life and sometimes, without me even knowing it!

I have to admit though that since I was young, I’ve seldom picked up a camera. My Mom gave me a beautiful camera when I graduated from university and I gave it back to her because it stressed me out to have it and not know how to use it…but I never bothered to learn! Even when we bought our SLR camera, it took me months before I would even go near it. I was afraid. I was afraid of not being good at it. It’s hard to explain but I was afraid of loving something so much and not being able to contribute to it in my own way. I seemed easier to me to imagine that I would be good at it then risk the possibility of actually being bad at it! I know, it’s not easy to rationalize but for lack of a better explanation, my camera scared me...it still does sometimes!

A couple of years ago, my sister-in-law was getting married and asked me if I would take pictures of her wedding. Terrifying? Yes. A sister that I can say no to? Not so much. So I agreed, along with my brother-in-law, to tag team her wedding in hopes of capturing images that would somehow do justice to their beautiful occasion.

She loved them! And because she was happy…I was happy! And I had fun! I was happy with my camera in my hand and free reign over everything happening around me.

Here’s the thing though…in the last month or so, I’ve been asked to photograph two more weddings! Back to back weekends in late May and early June. And though the very thought of it makes me want to throw up (because I’m just that nervous)…I can’t seem to say no. How could I? How could I tell the universe that I’m not going to repay my little cousin’s (not so little anymore!) efforts when I was manically clicking away on a disposable camera? It would almost seem rude!

So off I will go, camera in hand, to try to make something beautiful of an even more beautiful day. I will pull myself up by my bootstraps…tell the little girl in me to not be afraid and just let my eyes do the talking.

But still…a shot of tequila couldn’t hurt!

for my texan friend...

"In the depth of winter I have finally learned
that there within me lay an invincible summer."
~ Albert Camus

how do i love thee...

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with a passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

monkey mind...

I haven’t been sleeping very well this past week. I have, as my favourite author would say, Monkey Mind! When the lights go out, my mind seems to swing from one branch to the next in a flurry of random thought until I suddenly notice that it’s the middle of the night and despite my rapidly closing eyelids, I’m still wide awake! I have a lot on my mind right now and it appears that my conscious is in a rather big hurry to figure these things out. My currently exhausted body is starting to pay the price for it.

Anyways, as I was awake last night, I started to think about my Grandma Mae. It was actually in the midst of reading a new book that made me think of her; Steve was sleeping soundly next to me and when I opened up my book, the spine make a little creaking sound and I could suddenly smell the fresh new pages. I felt like I was instantaneously brought back to my childhood!

My grandmother lived with me and my Mom for awhile when I was in elementary school. Her bedroom was at the front of our house and she had this one chair that she sat in all day long. It was strategically positioned in the corner of her room so that she could look out the front windows onto the street as well as look out her bedroom door at what else was going on in the house. My memories of my grandmother are numerous and plenty but because I was so young, they are also rather selective. My time spent with her was always wonderful but the time that she spent with us in our home was what I remember most.

My grandmother was a hilarious woman! She was always very old to me – very fragile in her own way. Her skin seemed thin, almost translucent, and her frame seemed so tiny. She moved slowly and spoke quietly…she was one of the gentlest people I’ve ever known. Contrary to that though, she also smoked like a chimney, was content to live off a diet made up only of chocolate chip cookies and she could drink anyone under the table! I’m not kidding…this woman knew how to hold her liquor!!

What I remember most though was her love of stories. She loved books and she read all the time. She would sit in her brown chair in the corner with one of her cats on her lap and she would literally read for hours on end, going through countless books at any given time. Her room was always filled with books from the library that had those plastic protective covers on them and the card in the back that had the return due date stamped on them! Her room smelled like books and I loved it!

I’m sure that my love of the written word has so much to do with having had her in my life.

When her eyesight started to go, she acquired this huge magnifying glass with a light on it to help her read. Eventually her eyesight disappeared all together and she was forced to listen to books on tape instead. I know that she still enjoyed the stories but I also know that she missed feeling the pages between her fingers, seeing the words in front of her and most of all, that unique smell of ink on paper. Her hearing faded with the time but she listened to her books on tape until the very end. It was sad for me to know that old age cost my grandmother one of the things that she loved the most. She still had her taste buds though and that meant that she still had her chocolate chip cookies!

So I found myself thinking of her last night as I cracked the spine of my new book. I’m reading Water for Elephants right now. The author, Sara Gruen, grew up in London, Ontario and went to the University of Ottawa…just like me! I wonder if our common journeys and the fact that I received three copies of it for my birthday means someone is trying to tell me something?!?! Clearly, the universe is insistent that I read this and what can I say…I’m always happy to oblige!

My book doesn’t quite smell the same way that my grandmother’s books did but few of them ever do. You have to dig deep in the old piles at the library to get that smell anymore. But I certainly enjoyed my Monkey Mind a little bit more yesterday as I remembered that wonderful woman who unknowingly brought literature and stories into my life.

It’s comforting to know that anytime I feel sleepless in the night, I can simply crack the spine and know that I’m not reading alone. She probably would have been up in the middle of the night too! Reading a good book no doubt!