Light

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Photography: Pink Moon

The power of the pink moon wakes me. Stumbling out of bed, I wander barefoot through half-lit rooms looking through distorted glass while my eyes attempt to adjust. What if I let them stay blurry? What if I simply see what’s there? Maybe beauty does exist in the imperfections. The flowers tell me so. I follow the sounds to the beach and surrender.

“Oh moon, I have begun
to envy you
your terrifying
powers”
—Henry Virgin

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The fourth full moon of the year arrived on my birthday while on vacation at Dillion Beach. The moon proved elusive and all my photos turned out distorted. I had no choice but to embrace the imperfections and play with them.

Let me know if you have a favorite. These photos were taken with an Olympus OM-D and edited with ON1 Photo RAW.

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Photography: Washington Part 2-Shelburne Hotel

On the second night of our trip, we traveled to the historic town of Seaview and stayed at the Shelburne Hotel. You may remember I wrote about our ghost experience in this same hotel last year, and so we were eager to return. Although I’m certain I felt someone gently pressing me down in the clawfoot bathtub, this time our experience was mostly restful.

For me, the beauty of staying at the longest continuously operating hotel in Washington State is the interesting light fixtures and the way the hotel makes you feel like you’ve stepped back in time. I hope you’ll consider staying here if you ever find yourself in the area. Let me know if you have a favorite photo or if something stands out for you. Thanks!

“All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.”
—Leo Tolstoy

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  • These photos were taken with an Olympus OM-D and edited with ON1 Photo RAW.
  • For booking information, visit the Historic Shelburne Hotel
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poetry: snow cave

in Winter
in all Winters
it lays dormant inside 
domed darkness

you walk past it looking nowhere
anywhere, but not there
  never there

yet it goes still
growing bedrock feral
mushroom bellied
lichen ferocious
trapping pain web-like
crackling like ice
smelling like bruised desperation
like untouched skin
like hot ash scattered by eroded winds 

you don’t need to see
to feel

you walk faster looking nowhere
anywhere, but not there
  never there 

yet it goes still
like tides
like movement 
Spring saplings tap-dancing
on rooted tiptoes
daffodils issuing battle cries
thrusting spears upward
dandelion puffs cooing
dreaming light again
there’s a light somewhere
he says

your nested winds sigh
your meadow grasses rustle
your waters ripple gently

just a bit longer
you tell your forest
  hold tight 

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52 Photo Challenge: Week 35-Handheld Long Exposure

“The night is falling down around us. Meteors rain like fireworks, quick rips in the seam of the dark… Every second, another streak of silver glows: parentheses, exclamation points, commas – a whole grammar made of light, for words too hard to speak.”—Jodi Picoult

This week my assignment for the 52 photo challenge was to experiment with handheld long exposure. While this is similar to motion blur, instead of trying to capture movement you are trying to create it. I really had fun playing with purposeful movement and light.

These photos were taken either overlooking the city from my neighborhood park or in the local casino parking lot. The shots of my daughter are used with her permission and my gratitude. She’s such a wonderful supporter of me and always up for a drive.

I hope you like these very different kind of shots. I’ve also included two bonus photos of the supermoon. Let me know if you have a favorite photo and have a fantastic week.

Week 35: The Broken Shell

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  • Photos were taken with an Olympus OM-D and edited with ON1 Photo RAW
  • If you want to join the 52 Photo Challenge, you can find all the information at nicolesy.com

52 Photo Challenge
Week 1: Bokeh
Week 2: Silhouette
Week 3: Black and White
Week 4: Motion Blur
Week 5: Texture
Week 6: Framing
Week 7: Leading Lines
Week 8: Negative Space
Week 9: Patterns
Week 10: Symmetry
Week 11: Green
Week 12: Sidelight
Week 13: Sense of Scale
Week 14: One Lens
Week 15: Series
Week 16: Flat Lay
Week 17: Behind the Scenes
Week 18: Water
Week 19: Blurry Foreground
Week 20: Unique Perspective
Week 21: Shadow
Week 22: Food
Week 23: Abstract
Week 24: Reflection
Week 25: Contrast Color
Week 26: Think in Threes
Week 27: Starburst
Week 28: Low Perspective
Week 29: Macro
Week 30: Backlight
Week 31: Big Sky
Week 32: Dominant Color
Week 33: Fill the Frame
Week 34: Spot Metering

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poetry: supermoon

20/30

we look upwards
towards a promise
we are small
but not alone
we are lonely
but not small

she sees us
our broken hearts
our shadow shapes
how we twist
moving in parallel
dreaming in sync

maybe bright means
lighter than before
we stand quiet
hands reach out
we look upwards
towards a promise

More short poems:
1/30: not my cat
2/30: comfort
3/30: ache
4/30: remember
5/30: graduation
6/30: big love
7/30: Heavy and light
8/30: delicate
9/30: leaping
10/30: Dad gave me…
11/30: solstice
12/30: twisted
13/30: starving
14/30: open up
15/30: lines
16/30: daybreak
17/30: moon water
18/30: bedtime
19/30: typewriter

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52 Photo Challenge: Week 21-Shadow

“May your feet ever walk in the light of two suns… and may the moonshadow never fall on you… ”—Robert Fanney

This week my assignment for the 52 photo challenge was to capture shadows. I had originally thought it might be nice to drive downtown and look for interesting shapes, but time got away from me and I settled on playing around at home.

The first eight photos were taken in my daughter’s bedroom and are of my own shadow. The rest were taken in the backyard. The hummingbird and owl are metal cutouts that usually sit in my planters, but I moved them around to create these images.

Last week was hard for me. I cried a lot and reached a new part of my healing and these photos are a part of that expression. I hope these photos bring you as much joy as they did me. Let me know if you have a favorite and have a fantastic week!

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  • Photos were taken with an Olympus OM-D and edited with ON1 Photo RAW
  • If you want to join the 52 Photo Challenge, you can find all the information at nicolesy.com

52 Photo Challenge
Week 1: Bokeh
Week 2: Silhouette
Week 3: Black and White
Week 4: Motion Blur
Week 5: Texture
Week 6: Framing
Week 7: Leading Lines
Week 8: Negative Space
Week 9: Patterns
Week 10: Symmetry
Week 11: Green
Week 12: Sidelight
Week 13: Sense of Scale
Week 14: One Lens
Week 15: Series
Week 16: Flat Lay
Week 17: Behind the Scenes
Week 18: Water
Week 19: Blurry Foreground
Week 20: Unique Perspective

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The light and the dark of my friend

It can happen in just a second.

We are chatting happily about nothing in particular and the light suddenly shifts. Something I said either sparked a memory or struck an exposed wound that I didn’t see, and the darkness descends.

It’s always in the eyes first. I see the color shift slightly and then his gaze drops. Hoping it wasn’t noticed, eye contact is resumed. Yet the wrinkles on his forehead deepen and I can see the truth just under the surface bubbling.

His voice is his biggest betrayer. The tone, volume and speed all drop and I can actually hear the sadness seeping in. It’s subtle, but so noticeable once you pay attention. Like a siren broadcasting the approaching storm, it’s unmistakable.

Defenses shoot up fast, as only someone as experienced in living with pain knows how to do, and I prepare myself for the protective show.

Smiling way too big.

Telling a joke far too exuberantly.

Twisting the conversation away.

Diversionary tactics honed from years of experience.

He is a master at hiding.

He has perfected the art of subtly pushing friends away and protecting them from his demons. Thwarting real conversations with jokes meant to make you uncomfortable and to push your limits. If you’re off balance than you won’t look deeper at him.

handI watch as he pours himself into his creative outlets. His music, writing and art are filled with darkness and light. They are brilliant and help keep him from descending deeper down.

All of this hiding, covering up and creativity do work…most of the time.

Yet after experiencing and battling the darkness myself, the terrible monster that is depression, those moments when I see it happen can’t be ignored. I can’t just let them go without notice.

Nobody should have to go it alone.

True darkness isn’t something you can wish away or just “get over.” It’s as personal as your fingerprint, yet universal in its ability to destroy you. Everyone has experience with it, yet not everyone is pulled completely down.

I know that I am lucky. I have support, love and therapy. I strive to stay in the light most of the time, yet I know the dark intimately and slip down more than I care to admit.

There is no fix for depression.

It makes you feel alone and isolated. Nobody wants to talk about it. Nobody wants to go there with you. It’s too uncomfortable and you have to be willing to expose your own darkness.

It is not for the faint of heart.

I want to be there for him, for my mother and for many others that I see struggle. All I can offer is an acknowledgement of the pain, my sincere love and a listening ear.

I can’t turn away from them.

For me, when I feel that heaviness start to take me over, I get busy. Super busy. I focus on each task throughout my day, making myself check lists and fretting over tiny details that have little real significance. I pour myself into my children and others and hope it’s enough.

But inevitably it happens.

I break.

Retreating into my hole with tears streaming down my face, I push everyone away and wallow in my feelings of inadequacy and fear.

The Machine

There is something in the tonal change
subtle, barely perceptible
enough to pull the lever

Chain winds around and tightens
breath becomes harder, thoughts unclear
belt moves, screeches its familiar tune

Never enough, constantly trying and failing
can’t let go, things will break
turning, tightening, hurting

Unrelenting it whines and chugs
painful pitch vibrates deep inside
sweet relief, release forever inches away

Intensity, fear wrapped in network of pain
turn it up, always threatening to break
shuddering, pulsing, trembling within

Gears slip, yet won’t fully snap apart
unbalanced it eternally churns uneven song
never the same, lever won’t be pushed back

I can see this pattern, this machine, work itself on me and many others that I love. I see it wind us up and spit us out. I wish I could shake us all free of its grasp and live fully in the light. Yet, deep down I suspect that isn’t something that can happen. The dark is always there.

Yet I am trying.

And I am praying.

I’m a tiny baby Christian just barely blooming. I read the Bible as a teenager, but never really embraced it. I was cynical, questioning and goal focused. There was no time to ponder my soul; I had papers to write, bills to pay and expectations to fulfill.

A few nights ago I read this:

1 John 2:6-7: If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

The darkness has been such a big part of my adult life; it’s hard to imagine fully letting it go. Yet I want to. I wonder what it would be like to let go of all the pain that I hold tight to my chest? I wonder what it would feel like to live each day embracing the light and never fearing the dark?

I take another stumbling step forward, but I am no longer alone.

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Battling giants and stomping the floor

10274147753_73b9312e43_cThe children were playing on the edge of the woods when then heard loud sobbing. Although frightened by the sound, the children gathered their courage and found a lonely dragon crying. Each tear turned into a precious stone as it hit the ground. The children befriended the dragon and he no longer was lonely.

For years the children would return each Autumn to the woods and visit the dragon. He would give them one of his tears to keep. As the children entered the darkness of winter, these precious stones would serve to remind them of the love, light and friendship they share.

But this year something dreadful happened. A horrible, mean giant stole all the tears. This giant prefers darkness, fear and loneliness and he loves to scare little children. You must sneak into the giants home while he sleeps and steal back the dragon tears one by one. You will need to gather your inner-strength, courage and light to lead you through the task. Good luck.

This is the story that I and others read to the children on Saturday at our school’s annual Harvest Festival. The children would then sneak into the giant’s house and grab a stone.

I watched as one by one they did, indeed, gather their courage and enter the house. The giant was making sounds and shifting in his sleep. He would occasionally wake or say something scary. The children did it. They loved it. Some came back multiple times to conquer their fear.

As I watched this play out over and over, I realized how much I am running from my own fears. My giant is my fear of rejection. My fear that when people get to know me they will leave. My fear that when I speak my truth I will be laughed at. My fear that allowing myself this space and time to heal is selfish. My fear that I will never be happy because I don’t really deserve it.

So I’m facing these fears. I’m walking right up to them. The giant is making lots of sounds but I’m moving forward anyway. Inner-strength, love and light are my weapons.

Sunday was another dancing morning for me and I went thinking about fear. I went with the intention of releasing some of it. What came out was anger. Lots and lots of anger.

At times I stomped the floor so hard that my feet hurt. My hands kept clenching into fists. I realized that I was holding so much anger and resentment. After several hours it started to release its hold. I could feel the anger melting off. By the end of the session I was smiling. Really smiling.

There is still so much work to be done, but I’m feeling lighter.

I spent the rest of the day yesterday with my family. We went to the park. I played catch with my husband. I’m so afraid of baseballs. I saw my mom get her lip split open as a kid and the balls scare me. But I got to the point of actually catching some with my eyes open.

“You are not rooted to one spot,” my husband said. “You can move your feet to meet the ball.”

I watched my daughter try over and over to conquer the monkey bars. Her determination is wonderful to see. She is no longer afraid of falling and can make it halfway before losing her grip. No frustration or tears. I’m in awe of her.

My boy spent his time building with sticks and leaves and floating his creations down the creek. He would throw it off one side of the bridge and then watch it come out the other side. Over and over.

After the park, we all went bowling and then out to dinner. Laughter. Silliness. Balloon animals. Ice cream. Kisses.

Best of all, I was there. Really there.