a sojourn and a home

I am thinking about these two words: home and sojourn a lot right now as they are a potential theme for a photo project I am working on with a friend of mine. I went out today with old friends and as we hung out I carried those words with me. Together, the three of us, we flew a kite on the beach in Whiterock. It was so freeing and startling - I felt home as I photographed the kite, as I learned to fly the kite. After playing we went for appetizers and talked. It had been about three years since we sat down together and chatted. We starting talking about my first stay (sojourn) in NYC. As the memories poured out into the air, I felt excited and hopeful. I remembered, how innocent I was as I clamored around the city. I remembered photo shooting so naively. --- Later this evening, driving home - I felt inspired. I live in this great city, I have a great camera and I am entering in, with the same naiveté, the same innocence. It makes me hopeful, ready to create a new portfolio, of this new home, this new time in my life. To create excellent life changing, inspiring memories.

What would you do if your income knew no limits?

I was asked that question recently. And, it was a question, I didn't need to pause to think for. But now, days later, I want to pause and revel in my imagination and dream my answer into all its possibilities - oh I love possibility! My answer gives me goose bumps, its makes me excited for the future. Excited to think, it could happen, one day, even without funds with no limits. My answer: travel the world, explore the vast array of cultures. Immerse myself in other ways of life. Take photograph after photograph, write stories, journal, blog - live it.

Missing Manhattan

the stench of something wafts to me.
i crinkle my nose.
i smile anyways. its truth in its own way.

i miss it.

freedom in the subway (time constraints and all).
bryant park. is beautiful.
buskers sing for dollars. hungry.
loving art, life, & song.
photoshooting, bravery and loneliness.
It's all the same.

i miss it.

there is love, pain and brokenness.
but it works. it's raw, it's real.
you can't be blind, when you see. (if you really look).

i miss it.

In the Heat of the Summer

It's been awhile since I have thought of the sweet days of the summer of 2007. I have spent the last month searching through my archives looking for "new" old photographs to share with people, to be inspired by. Luckily, there were a few, but the ones of that summer took me back there. As I stare at the photographs I can almost feel the humid air.
There is something about that summer that inspired me like never before. My work was at its finest (in my opinion anyways) I crave to be back there, not to NYC, but to that place of inspiration, that place of almost naivete where my work was less followed. It was more personal, I was taking more risks. I allowed myself a sense of freedom, that I seem to have lost, or misplaced.

I will get there again.

Wandering: Finding Place

I am wandering, aimless in this life: a freeloader, living off of generous hands. I did not see this coming. I saw my dreams start unfold before my eyes, at the tips of my fingers... those dreams are gone, done, dissipated into oblivion. At least that's how it feels. A friend recently invited me to live with her, for a year in Cambodia. A part of me yearns for newness, for a place to be inspired. The other part craves stability, home and lifelong friendships. I left NYC in June with the intentions of an imminent return. It was not so. I am torn between two worlds right now...

I once lived in NYC, actually twice. And in those months, it stole my heart. I braved the summer and the winter. Braved the spring, but not the fall. I learned compassion, in a whole new way, I learned to see and breathe and sing...photographing all the beauty, the people and the place - I found a home. I fell in love and broke my heart. I skated round the pond in Bryant Park.

I conversed with a New Yorker friend online today. She spoke of being a quitter and hopes that in not quitting her most current endeavor that in the, end her experience, it will in turn, be fruitful Her revelation reminded me, that I too, am a quitter (have been a quitter). I fight with my desire to quit everyday. I know what it is.

More than goodbye, I hate to be vulnerable - exposed for the entire world to see. Intimacy is excruciating. I was thinking today as I looked down at a small sketch (I once drew) - I was startled by it, startled that it looked like something, that it was art. I think of myself as an artist in one form. I am a photographer. I get confused by it sometimes, and often wonder why I have no other, artistic tendencies. When I saw my sketch, I remembered the vulnerable moment I drew it in ... It's rare, those moments happen. But, It made me think of all that I could accomplish, if only I allowed them to happen.

I think, its there that NYC pulls at my heartstrings because far from home: I have to be vulnerable.

my soundtrack

I was talking to my old pastor the other day and I was telling him, how when I walk through the tunnels underground from one train to another, I listen to my IPOD really loud and as I am walking I feel like I am in my own soundtrack. Everything feels abnormal, people are walking in a fast pace: muti-tasking (ipod, iphone, texting, talking etc.), and they are walking all sorts of directions and somehow nobody seems to run into one another. It's like this weird game and everyone knows the rules, everyone plays fair. Somehow we all get to the turnstile or the platform in one piece. As the music plays, I can be anyone, completely anonymous. It's a totally surreal experience.

After this conversation, Dave asked me what my soundtrack would be. Thrown off guard I came up with The Gilmore Girls, but today I was thinking about my favorite movie and why its my favorite movie. I think there is something so cool about being able to express yourself without words. To know and to connect with people and God in such an intense way. And I realized that perhaps photography is my soundtrack in the same way August has music. Perhaps it allows me to see, allows me to open up my heart in a more profound way.