Last night I spent several chilly hours hanging out with some photographer friends (that’s one of them above.  Do you see her shivering?).  We’d originally met to shoot at Nashville City Cemetary, but it was all locked up.  There was some group hesitation about scaling the fence so we wound up at Bicentennial Mall instead.  Now, it’s not the prettiest time of year to be shooting there (again, see above), but it didn’t really matter.  Why not?  Why would a relatively normal person wander around in frigid weather in a winter-denuded park that tends to get dangerous when the light fails and call it the best evening I’ve had in weeks?  Well, dinner at MAFIAoZA’s afterwords helped, but really, it boils down to one word:  PASSION.

While warming up, we talked over lasagna and pasta about what we love to shoot and why.  The specific answers don’t really matter (if you’re interested I can let you know my reasons in the comments, just ask).  It doesn’t even matter really whether we’re good at it or not.  It doesn’t matter how experienced we are.  Our group had wide-ranging photographic interests and experience levels…but we all have a passion for making images.  And sharing that passion with each other (and with you here) is a richly rewarding experience.

I vividly remember two distinct conversations with co-workers at Wieland Designs years ago.  During one I realized I really had no life beyond work (as I stammered with no answer to “What do you do for fun?”) and in another I struggled to come up with a single topic or interest I was passionate about.  At that time, I was so tired, so burned out, so relationally stressed, so out of touch with who I was and what moved me, that I couldn’t drum up an ounce of passion about anything at all.  And it had been that way for a very long time.  It’s a dreary, colorless way to live.

I’m on the road to recovery, I can list lots of things I’m passionate about now.  And one of them involves looking at life through my lens and capturing its moments and its people.  To my photographer friends across the country who share that passion and their friendship with me, thank you for a wonderful 2009.  To my local network of friends willing to brave cold weather, last minute arrangements and potentially “creepy people” to hang out and create magic (both images and camaraderie)…thank you for sharing your time, your stories, your passion, severe storms and beer and pizza with me.  To those of you who allow me to share my thoughts in this blog with you, you have my eternal gratitude.  Thanks for listening.

It’s the time of year for reflection and planning.  If you spend time doing that this week, consider your passions and how they interact with your goals and plans.  Is there room for passion in your world?  What moves you?  Create opportunities to do more of it!

Where do you find yourself this holiday?  I know people who are out of work and plagued by the oppressive worry of putting groceries on the table.  I know more than one family grieving the loss of several family members.  I know people enjoying a vacation with loved ones all around them.  I know families celebrating the birth of their first child.  In my world, it’s been an odd season.  There have been significant highs…quiet, silly, fun and meaningful moments with my son and with friends and family.  But there have been lows too…difficult business decisions, sickness and puking (ok, so if not particularly serious, it was at least particularly icky) and the first holiday without my boy present.

The antique Chinese farm baskets in the image above were in an alley outside a retail shop in North Carolina. They rested, one on another, along the alley wall.  All similar, but with their own subtle variations in shading and shape.  Individually, they were strong and functional.  Together, they created a rhythmic tapestry of texture, one that could accomplish much.

There are both tragic and joyful threads in our lives and they are woven together to make us beautiful, functional and strong people, should we allow it. I am grateful for both types of strands in my life today.  As those baskets leaned, rested with and were supported by the ones who touched them, so I am grateful for all of you who “do life” with me, whether in large or small ways, in person or online.  Thank you for your contribution to my weaving, you make it better, it would not be the same without you.

If you are celebrating a thread this season that is full of joy, plenty and love, then treasure this time.  Remember that you will not always be in a bountiful place and refuse to take it for granted.  If you are grasping a thread for dear life today, remember that this also will pass and contribute to the strength of your basket.  In either case, look around you and notice how the tragic and beautiful combine to create lasting weavings of strength and grace in our lives.

May you learn to treasure both tragedy and joy in your own life and may your holiday sparkle with the Gift that is Christmas!

Enjoy the holiday, my friends!

I’ve been meaning to feed you a lighter post this week, since I’ve been fairly intense about things for a few weeks.  But, for some strange reason sleeplessness, a ten day infection and a four-year-old’s constant begging for Halloween loot has just chased the funny all out of me tonight.  Instead, I’m thinking about emptiness.

Usually, these posts start with an image and how it intersects with what I’m thinking about, how it makes me feel or how I felt taking it.  But driving to a friend’s house for holiday festivities Halloween afternoon, the sun came out.  Now, if you live in Seattle this is a big deal.  I don’t live in Seattle.  But, Middle Tennessee has decided this year to have a run at the number of consecutive months it can claim are the “rainiest on record” and the sun coming out was a welcome surprise.  It made the foliage colors shine brilliantly.  The catch was that it also made it quite evident that the trees are generally past their prime and the dull, grey rain has masked the progression of Fall in my part of the world.  I started thinking about empty tree branches.

My son got tired of dragging around his sugar collection receptacle and decided that this tree would be a great place to park it.  The leaves are mostly fallen and drifted off to parts unknown.  I wonder how that feels as they fall off and blow away?  A tree produces those leaves, works a season for them, transforms them into beautiful fluttering gems and then watches them die, leaving barren emptiness behind in the cold.  I’m obviously anthropomorphizing and I know it, but I’m feeling a bit like that empty tree at the moment.

That crazy-faced pumpkin bag is empty too.  But, it holds the anticipation and immanent promise of being filled with sugar and smiles.  Of holding fun and fond memories for its companion.

Both empty.  Completely different emotions.  Hang your crazy-faced bag on the tree.  Invite anticipation.  Emptiness is a temporary phase.

Its the curse of hormones I know.  Once a month I get overwhelmed.  I can handle just about anything…most of the month anyway.  But this year, there’s too many personal, financial, relational and business crises.  I’ve been overwhelmed much more often than one a month and hormone peaks and valleys have nothing to do with it (except make it worse).  I run a business that’s mainly customer service oriented.  When my staff is overwhelmed with calls and tasks, they know what I’m going to tell them, “Just do the next thing next.  Keep focusing on the next important thing and the rest will sort itself out.”

I was thinking about feeling that way today and ran across these images of the North Carolina mountains I took this summer.  It was a really hazy weekend and the mountains seemed to go on forever from where we stood.  One after another, layer and layer of varying hues of blue.  Not unlike how I feel about my life at the moment.  Layer upon layer of issues, stretching to the horizon.

While the mountains are beautiful, my world would be prettier with several fewer layers.  But, in the same way my eyes are drawn to the foliage and flowers in these images to give the mountains perspective, so I’ll keep focusing the next thing right in front of me until the clouds clear again. (Yes, I’m reminding myself!)

The food image isn’t the best (it’s especially for you, Ryan) but, I didn’t plan on taking it.  I was hungry and I have no working light bulbs left in the fixture in the dining area.  I had one that still worked today, but I couldn’t see to cook because the kitchen light only had one good bulb left too so I sacrificed the dining room bulb to allow me to cook.  Unfortunately, the stronger light just let me see more clearly that in addition to light bulbs, I really need to buy some food one of these days.  I have enough Ramen Soup to last me for lunch for awhile, but not much in the way of real food.  I have enough eggs, cheese and minced ham left to make one more decent omelet, but after that I think I’m going to have to break down and visit the grocery.  I’m even out of peanut butter.

I love food and I love to cook, but I’ve been traveling a lot and was sick over the weekend and just haven’t felt up to the effort required to go around the corner to the store (yes, it’s really less that a half mile away).  So, I keep scrounging through the cabinets and freezer (the refrigerator has been down to six kinds of salad dressing and club soda for a few weeks).  I think I’ve pretty much reached the end of the scavenging, but as I looked in the cabinet and rearranged the can of pumpkin, jar of molasses and package of bread crumbs again, I pulled one more meal out of it.  I had a half package of penne and added a sauce of diced tomatoes, creamed corn, black olives and pesto and some grated parmesan.  As I began to eat the Penne Pesto Mashup that might have been a complete bomb, I was pleasantly surprised to realize it was really good!  Simple and flavorful.  Satisfying.

My son turned four today.  He’s been several states away from me for most of the summer, which has been very hard (ok, very very VERY hard), but, today was particularly difficult.  He was very excited, and I got to experience the day in a 15 second phone call that went like this, “Happy Birthday!”  “Thanks, Mom!  I LIKE being four!  I have to go to the bathroom, bye!”  As I ate the meal that came from the leftover ingredients orphaned in the back of my cabinet I realized that the meal I was enjoying needs to be a metaphor for my summer.  While I feel rather lost without my boy, I want to spend the next three weeks living a satisfying, full-of-flavor life fashioned from the ingredients I have on hand.  Well, maybe with a few additional light bulbs.