Following Our Dreams All the Way Home

This is my father.
Nicotine stained, work-worn, full of fire, fueled by possibility.

He is a rascal, a maverick, a speculator, a pirate.  
He is hopeful.  He is unchanging.  He is mine.

He takes the long way home, so I can see the sunset across the bridge.  He tells stories about the car, how he bought it for seven hundred and eleven dollars a few months ago.  How they charge him next to nothing for insurance because they don’t expect him to be able to drive a thirty-year old car this fast.  I can barely hear him over the roar of the engine, over the sound of the wind whipping my hair around my face.  

We soar down the road like a rocket.

My whole life I can barely remember him even though I grew up in the house we both call our home.  He is busy.  He is traveling.  He is gone.  My mother pulls her coat over her pregnant belly in the winter and goes out to the patio to chop wood for the fireplace.  I’m sure there is a good reason for this, but I cannot remember it.  Where is my father?  I do not know.

The parts I do remember are like this.  He is calling home.  He is helping some homeless guy he just met. He is bringing home some Austrian backpackers who are shocked that they lock the churches here, and now they have nowhere to sleep.  He is talking to the man who is determined to end his life.  He is driving some guy to the emergency room, because he found him stabbed on the street.   He is collecting wildflowers off the side of the highway, because they are beautiful.  He is bringing home flowers for all of us, because we are his little women.

All this, I understand, with all my heart.

When he doesn’t call it is because he is smoking cigarettes in his office, adding up his dreams in lines of little numbers written in pen on paper napkins.  He is at the airport.  He is with the client at a restaurant.  He is selling something.  He is working harder than any man has ever worked before. He is waiting for this deal to come through.  He is waiting for his ship to come in. No matter what, there is always work and traveling and the sound of the television and the numbers on the napkins.  No matter what.

This I make peace with over years, over time.  I extract all the numbers until dreams form like poems on my napkins.  I learn to follow these dreams (just as he followed his) with all my heart.  

We are almost to the bridge now.  He tells me about the car, and how happy it makes him.  He tells me how beautiful the stars are overhead, when he drives with the top down late at night.  He tells me how they make him think of me.  How much he knows I would enjoy the view.   In this moment, his heart is as expansive as the sky above, and I can’t believe how lucky I am—to experience his love for me in this moment, so perfect, so complete.

He slows down at the top of the bridge, so I can capture the sunset.   I take twenty pictures as fast as I can, but in the end none means as much to me as this.   What more could I need than this love?  This forgiveness?  The memory of his hand at the wheel as we follow our dreams all the way home?

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May you discover the story of your life today, dear sisters, as you look through the lens with love in your eyes and hope in your soul.  Do you have a photo that is dear to you because of the story it tells your heart?   I'd be delighted to see your links in the comments below.

Everyday Risk

Everyday in my little urban neighborhood, I see things that totally delight me. Huge gangsta-looking guys carrying their babies in Baby Bjorns. Salvadoran women balancing enormous parcels on their heads. Little kids hanging out of their strollers hoping you'll stop and chat. More than anything else, I wake up every morning convinced I have to find a way to capture my neighborhood and celebrate all the ways it hums and sings like magic.

Doing so, however, requires that I photograph people. People I don't always know. I feel silly snapping away like I'm some kind of professional when I've only been doing this for five minutes! Who am I to interrupt someone's day for an informal photo shoot? The internal dialogue goes on and on. So, off I go on my walks, camera in hand, coming home instead with 200 pictures of flowers, produce and the shape of a house against the cool blue sky. You know how it is. :)

Of course, there's nothing wrong with this. But I also know that my very best work as an artist comes when I go straight to the edge of what feels comfortable and dive right into that uneasy, sticky place where I don't know if I'm being brilliant or totally ridiculous. That place where you have no idea if anything will turn out all right, where the only thing left to do is pour your heart out and let yourself play. Outcomes and foolishness be damned.

Yesterday, the Universe decided I must be ready for a little nudge in the taking-pictures-of-people department, because I walked out of the grocery store straight into a parade of people singing and following a float down the street--believe me, this is not an everyday occurrence! I had no idea what called for so much celebration, but it seemed to be religious in nature, and the crowd of maybe a hundred or more danced into the street, obviously happy. If there was ever a moment where it might be totally okay for a bystander to take a picture, this was it.

I held my camera up tentatively, as people swirled around me. Can I do this? Is this really okay? I wondered, feeling a little bit silly. And then the older woman in the picture above made eye contact with me and smiled kindly as if to say "Yes!" Just to be sure, I asked out loud, and then click.

With her help, I did it.

What risks are calling out to you today? It looks different for each one of us, and no one but you can tell which shot really represents your leap into unknown territory. That's the beauty of growing and developing as a photographer--we each do so at our own pace, facing our own unique challenges. Is there a particular thing you've been longing to try, but need a little nudge to do so? Tell us about it in the comments. Do you have a shot that marks a first for something new to you? Leave us a link below. I'd love to know what risks you're taking, as I forge ahead with my own.

Photo and post courtesy of the newest member of the sisterhood Jen Lemen. We're thilled to welcome her as a regular contributor.

More Than Enough

For the longest time, I've wanted a camera.  You have a camera, a little voice would answer in the back of my head.  And I'd have to nod and say, Yes, that's true.  My little point-and-shoot performed minor miracles for me, capturing moments of rare beauty and the kind of memories you want to hold close forever.  And I was grateful.

But then one day I rushed back to my unlocked car only to discover someone else had been there first, my hiding place discovered.  My little trusty camera was gone. 

I grieved for about five seconds and then determined it must be a sign.  An invitation even.  My time had come.  No more excuses.  I made a list of reasons why this was my next logical purchase and recited them religiously to my family members mid-click at B&H.  I need it for my business.  I need it for my blog.  I need it for our family.  The real reason, however, remained unspoken. 

I need this for my soul. 

What is it about seeing life through the lens that makes everything important come into focus?  What is it about letting in more light that puts everything in perspective?  What is it about filling the frame with something, someone you love that makes all the pieces of my heart fall into a perfect whole?

I know, I know.  I sound ridiculous.  But I can hardly help myself.  I am completely and totally in love with a new way of seeing the world, with the challenge and discipline of waiting, of watching.  I'm consumed with the task of drilling down to essentials, of uncovering magic in the most unlikely places.  I'm soaking up the experience of trying something new--even though I have no idea what I'm doing.  Even though my shiny new camera is for the most part a mystery machine in my hands. 

Someday I'll know how to tell a story with one shot that makes you want to weep.  Someday I'll know how to create an image that leaves you wistful and aching.  Someday I'll even know what AF means on that little round dial.  Or TV or AV or A-Dep, for that matter.

Until then, it will be all wonder and pure love--and right now, that feels like more than enough.

Photo and post courtesy of Guest Blogger Jen Lemen