Lenses and Lookingglasses

Home For the Holidays

2009-12-14T18:14:00.000-08:00

The Tree is Up.

Blogs have been short lately, more updates to come soon.

:)

2009-12-13T16:41:00.000-08:00

[ Time for a new bookshelf. ]

December

2009-12-07T14:16:00.000-08:00

Ok, so.

Its December 7th today.

For the last few weeks in Minnesota, its been ridcliously warm. Like, super, duper, duper warm.

Its not warm any more.
Yesterday, I did a family shoot and it was 19 degrees outside.
Painfully, brisk.

Its December.

Its cold.

Holiday

2009-11-26T08:56:00.000-08:00

merrychristmas

2009-11-22T17:32:00.000-08:00

Can't live without it

2009-11-20T20:04:00.000-08:00

.... and a few rough days later....

I am reminded that "just breathe" isnt even an option anymore.

You cannot just breathe.
Inhale, exhale.
Inhale, exhale.

You gotta keep going.
gotta keep going.

A normal life

2009-11-20T18:57:00.001-08:00

Whatever that is.

I don't pretend to know.

Don't think I haven't

tried to fold the socks

in neat pairs and stacked

the chipped blue rimmed bowls

and matching plates

inside the cupboard.

For years I have fed

the black and white dog

who barks whenever

the doorbell rings.

I filled the calendar

with important dates,

snipped daisies

blooming in the garden

beside the house, arranged

them in a glass vase

sitting in the sunlight

on the kitchen windowsill.

Marjory Heath Wentworth

DO THIS

2009-11-16T11:12:00.001-08:00

Rooms

2009-11-11T21:42:00.000-08:00

I miss her today.

Taylor

2009-11-11T21:25:00.000-08:00

Today I had the sweet opprotunity of doing an uncommon photoshoot.
Well, uncommon for me at least. Taylor is one cool kid. Student by day, BMX rider by all the other hours of the day, Taylor's got skills. With firey red hair and a smile to boot, this kid know how to enjoy life.

Even the senoir portrait side of it.

Check it, yo.

Don't Throw it Away

2009-11-09T14:39:00.000-08:00

Don't give it up.

Sunday Afternoon Art

2009-11-08T17:56:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to get over to my friend Elise's house for a while to have a little henna art party, today we finally managed to get something together.
Turned out qutie well.

3.14 and Thanksgiving

2009-11-07T21:49:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling

2009-11-02T17:27:00.000-08:00

This

and this:

2009-10-31T15:51:00.000-07:00

I signed up to be a face painter at the "Harvest Festival" at my church tonight.
I've never done face painting before, but, I figure I'm fairly good at doing my makeup everymorning and I like to paint, so ...
why not merge the two?

So, in preperation of this, I wanted to dress up. You know, for this "Harvest Festival".
When I was little, we would always go to events like this, but my mom would never let us dress up. She didn't want us to get too into it.
So, this year, I wanted to dress up.

Like a butterfly.

I started painting on my mask, a beautiful purple, a lovely pink mask across my face, distinguishing myself as someone who has arrived, changed, not a worm any more.

While painting on my lovely face, I thought about masks, about cover ups, about growing and changing from wormhood to fluttery flight. And how
despite it all.
Lets face it. I'm totally still a worm.
I'm totally still not there.

I can put up a front, I can pretend, pretend, pretend that I've matured completed , that I can just fly away, but I'd be lying. That would be a facade. That would be a mask.

I can't live this New Life promised while wearing a mask.
I won't be able to breathe.

I ended up wiping off my bohemian butterfly mask.
I can't pretend to be something I'm not.
(plus, my mom said I had too much eyeliner on)

Instead, I wore a hat. My favorite blue hat.
To keep my head warm while I paint the faces of little smiling kids dressed up like harry potter and ninja turtles.

Peace

October

2009-10-29T21:05:00.000-07:00

Keep it real. Keep it Rolling.

Life cannot stop just because we want it to.

Faith and Sight

2009-10-27T17:05:00.000-07:00

If Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,

Faith is in the eye of the blind man.

Emiline Harris

2009-10-26T18:42:00.000-07:00

Coffee

2009-10-26T09:55:00.000-07:00

Gonna need alot of it today.

All my Righteousness

2009-10-15T21:17:00.000-07:00

_________________________________________________________________________

But we are all like an unclean thing,
      And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags;
        We all fade as a leaf,
      And our iniquities, like the wind,

      Have taken us away.

Isaiah 64:6

2009-10-19T09:25:00.000-07:00

Be still.

Gold, Crimson, Spice

2009-10-23T15:56:00.000-07:00

Big things come in small ways sometimes.

_____________________________________

All week long I've been going to a seminar on resolving basic youth conflicts int he home and man....
its been wearing me out. The "Work all day and then the seminar till 10:00 to get to bed late to wake up early to do it all over again" routine wasnt working out for me.

So, this afternoon after work, while driving home after work, I wasnt paying much attention. You know, dazed driving.
Whipping around country roads and up and down surly hills, I went unaware of what was going on around me.

The world was changing before my eyes.
Dazed, I did not see.
Tired, I was unaware.

Until I hit a bump.Water from a passerby puddle splashed up onto my windshield, waking me up.
Rendering me aware.

I pulled my classic car on to a small side street lined with trees, parked and sat in my car.
Eyes opened and rather stunned.

Gold, Crimson, Spice. In plush, ripe tones.

The world was changing before my very eyes. I shut off the car, turned the volume knob to the left and listen.

It was silent, yet not quiet. Still, yet moving at incredible speed. The delicious sound of of wind and and earth blending. Like some ethereal sound from a story book. The smells of smoke from nearby chimneys and exhaust from my still warm engine filled the air around me. The kind of smell that reminds you of being young.

The leaves and the wind and the Earth had surrendered themselves to the consequences of time. The changing of things, of seasons.

I thought about the changing things in my life. Housing, and Finances. Our Country. My Relationships.
All these things changing, changing, changing.
And I know. I know that things are always changing, morphing, becoming better or worse.

Life is steady in its changing ways.
This, I know.

Right now, though it seems as if life is throwing at me a different kind of steady.
A different kind of change. The leaves of my life are turning from chlorophyll green to a rusty red, I do believe. Different from what they used to be.

My heart is changing. My desires are changing.

And yet, I tend to keep a watchful eye on that rear view mirror of seasons. I keep wanting to turn around, go back to my eco green lifestyle of not ever needed anyone and living out of a backpack. To my own, private poisonous urge to change everything, to act without reason, to move for movement's sake, to unsettle everything that God has ordained.

I struggle with looking too far ahead and too close behind. I struggle with change. Its pretty dumb.

Last year, at about this same time I wrote in my journal:

"...Usually, I would keep going, crunch the leaf and continue on my way…. By for some reason this time it was different.
Maybe it was the way this piece of summer gently floated off the tree down to my feet. Maybe it was the color that caught my eye, a brownish red, the color of change- of different things coming. Whatever the reason was, I stopped and stared at this little leaf for a while.
This solitary leaf.
This first soldier of winter.

I thought about change in life.
Change is seasons, in our season.
In my life.

I wondered if the leaf wanted to fall.
Or if it had a choice.

I wondered if the leaf wanted to stay up on the tree, where it was comfortable, and how even if I picked it up and glued it back to the tree -it would still be out of place. Even if it went back.
I wondered if the leaf would even want to go back now- back to the easy way of life- because maybe … it was supposed to fall, to change

As I stood there on the sidewalk staring down at my feet and this strange phenomenon before me, I thought of this summer. This season of the sun now winding down, falling into rest. . The ending of something beautiful. I gave a September sigh...."

A year later and I'm still battling this monster. A year later and I'm still uneasy about Fall, my fall and The Great Fall.

They say, at the Conference, that God isn't so much concerned with what we go through as our attitudes and reactions to the events.

I think thats probably true.

Its how I react to the change around me that matters more than whats going on.
Its if I keep driving, or if I pull over and open my eyes.
Its if I choose to remain dazed and tired or if I shut the car off and listen.
Its if I choose to engage in now, in RIGHT NOW, instead of waiting once again, to go somwhere else.
Its if I live today because He gave it to me.
Its if I realize that Gold, Crimson and Spice are sometimes far more exciting than green.

Its if I pray, like Thomas Merton, that "instead of merely wiring something, I may be something. So fully that the mere fact of being what I ought and doing what I should would be more elloquent than many books."

Its resting while yet pressing on.

Its knowing that He won't lead me anywhere I'm not supposed to go.
Its being ok with taking this road.
Where ever it might go.

____________________________________________________________________

big things come in small ways sometimes

Will You Marry Me?

2009-10-22T07:00:00.000-07:00

Life goes on. People still get married, all the time they get married, start new lives together, start something big.
I had the pleasure of shooting this wonderful couple Sunday, in downtownish Mineapolis.
We had a grand old time.
Engagments are ussually easier and more fun for me. Being in Love helps out.
Alot.

Minneapolis

2009-10-20T22:01:00.000-07:00

I spent all morning Sunday in Minneapolis with my sister, Allison. An engagement shoot and a nice breakfast of Panera bagels with toooons of cream cheese made the fall day quite... refreshing.

I love my city.

Come see me [us] in Minneapolis.

Please.

M

2009-10-19T22:43:00.000-07:00

Some one once told me that

What is most personal is most universal.

The pain of depression, feelings of inferiority, love, excitement about love, samll things that are big things.

So then, I write., I pray, truthfully, personally with Merton:

Lord, have mercy.
Have mercy on my darkness, my weakness, my confusion.
Have mercy on my infidelity, my cowardice, my turning about in circles, my wanderings, my evasions.
I do not ask anything but such mercy, always in everything, mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Make me want again to be holy, to be a man of God even in desperateness and confusion.
I do not ask necessarily for clarity, a plain way, but only to go according to Your love, to follow Your mercy, to trust Your mercy.