Love Thursday: April 17, 2008

"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them."  -Galileo Galilei

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We can't wait to see all the Love you discovered this week.  Happy Love Thursday Everyone!

Love Thursday Featured Fotographer: Kimberly Brimhall

"Carried With Love."

When I saw the photograph, above,  it brought me back to all the feelings that I had while waiting for my own daughter to be born:  the feelings of anticipation, excitement, concern:  the sorts of feelings that all expectant mothers feel, regardless of how their children come to be a part of their families.  And while the feelings may be complex, and plentiful, and even overwhelming, the truth is that ultimately, they all boil down to one emotion:  love.

 Happy Love Thursday, everyone.  This is the second in our monthly series, "Love Thursday Featured Fotographer."  The photograph above was submitted to the Shutter Sisters Flickr pool, taken by the extremely talented Kimberly Brimhall.  Be sure to check out the rest of her photographs here, and you can drop by her blog, Cheating Destiny, for more visual goodness.  And of course,  please leave links to your images of love in the comments below.

And may you experience complex, plentiful and even overwhelming feelings of love today. 

Love Thursday: April 3, 2008

As some of you know, Irene Nam and I started Love Thursday on our own personal blogs about 18 months ago, long before it found its home here on Shutter Sisters.  And while I don't think my daughter, Alex, exactly knows what Love Thursday is, it's certainly been a large percentage of her 4-year-old life that I've been searching for images or symbols of love to photograph each week.  It appears she's been bitten by the bug:  she's been finding heart shapes everywhere.  Yesterday, we were lying down on our patio, and she pointed out a heart-shaped cloud.  This past weekend, she found a tiny heart-shaped leaf that she placed on my knee for a second, before it blew away.  And just last week, as we were taking a walk in our neighbourhood, she found a heart-shaped splat of bird poop.

Be happy I shared this photograph of a found rock in my parents' back yard, instead.

 Happy Love Thursday, everyone.  As always, please leave links to your images of love in the comments section below.  Also, for inspiration, be sure to check out the images left by PhotoMom86 and camera shy momma in our Flickr Pool. 

And may you see images of love everywhere today. 

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.

Love Thursday: March 27, 2008

I love ...

 ... the coral beaches on the island of Tobago in my Caribbean homeland.  It is where I feel most at home.

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As always, please leave your links of images of love in the comments below (for inspiration, check out the work by megfarhen and jeroldssis).  Also, this week for a little twist, whether or not you leave a link feel free to share what you love.  But your answer can't be a person -- that's too easy.  Instead, share with us something that fills your soul with light.

Happy Love Thursday, everyone.