Just popping in from the land of editing to share with you a few quick shots taken with my iPhone in the backyard yesterday. I also want to share exciting things happening:
My short story collection book has a name and an ISBN number.
I’ve hired an artist to create a book cover and it should be done in February.
Yesterday, a kindergartner told me I was pretty.
I’ve decided on a new photo project—portraits of strong women. I’ve got the first three models/friends booked and I’m excited to see how this grows.
Tonight, I’m going to an art event celebrating Rebels, which is the exact energy I want to bring into this year.
Bubbles and sunshine filled my yard again.
I recently got Lightroom. My photos might look a bit different as I figure out how to use this new software, but I’m excited for a new challenge.
My camellias and daffodils are blooming.
My 5-year-old nephew is obsessed with gnomes and it’s the best thing over.
Tomorrow I’m taking my daughter to see Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and I get to wear my old cowboy boots.
The world feels like such a mess, so I hope you forgive my need to celebrate all the things. Tell me something good happening in your backyard today and I hope you have a fantastic week.
#1#2#3#4#5
These photos were taken with my iPhone and edited using Lightrooom.
“And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.”—Rainer Maria Rilke
It’s been a season of reading books, doing puzzles, snuggling under blankets, and savoring the warmth of my home. Big goals and plans are on the horizon, but right now I’m moving slowly and feeling fully into where I am at this moment.
Thank you to everyone who has read my blog this year despite my sporadic and inconsistent pattern. It’s been a year of tremendous highs and lows. I am mourning loss and also feeling incredibly blessed for new people who have come into my life.
May your New Year’s Eve and all next year swirl with beauty, love, peace, and hope.
I’m glad you are here.
#1#2#3#4#5#6#7#8#9#10
As always, photos were taken by me with an Olympus OM-D and edited with ON1 Photo RAW.
It’s the 8th day of the New Year and I’m behind. Behind in responding to comments. Behind in writing blog posts. Behind in reading blog posts. My Christmas decorations are still happily shining and my sink is full of dishes.
I share this because there’s a tendency this time of year to feel like you have to hit the ground running. January has to be YOUR month to get all the things done and to set into motion all the ways you wish to make your life better. It’s all a lie. Like so many untruths we tell ourselves, it’s just another example of perfectionism making us miserable.
Don’t let it.
I’ve chosen Movement as my word of the year. Any forward momentum toward my goals will be considered a success. No, I’ve not done much blogging, but I did take a trip to Tahoe and my photography heart got to dance in the snow. No, I’ve not done much cleaning of my house, but I’ve written a poem and short story in my journal every day this year so far. Movement. Like water over stones. It all matters.
If you’ve been around here a minute, you’ll know I have a deep love for David Bowie. Today would be his 77th birthday and last night I dreamed I was in his Lazarus music video. I was under the bed reaching my hand out to him. I woke and wrote this poem and a small flash fiction in his honor. I hope you enjoy them. They aren’t what I had planned to post but I’m learning to let my creativity go where it wants to.
like bluebirds racing sunlight like bare branches in a breeze like tomorrows that don’t come
it’s just like you to leave us quick as lightning moonman mornings starlight singings
fly free toward me
One who moves
I don’t want him to call me his bluebird one last time, although he does it anyway in a raspy voice I barely recognize. It matters to him, but I refuse sentimentality. I suppose it’s my way of fighting back. I know he understands.
“Time loops around,” I whisper when his heart stops.
Someone screams. Someone else runs to tell the people waiting on the mountain. Or maybe nobody is here at all except me. I wipe his eyes with the damp hem of my dress. I clean his face of tears, but the ones on my face are dry now.
He’s not gone, I yell to those wailing and screaming, but maybe the certainty he gave me at the end was only for me. He was fond of parting gifts. A lifetime of moon whispering, hip swaying, star gazing, and half-smiles don’t disappear. Not fully.
He’s writing everything down in a notebook beside the river while I wade up to my knees in the cool lapping water. Geese loudly scream out for attention, but I don’t take my eyes off his pen. Rocks beneath my toes are covered in slimy moss and they sing to me. The sky above is as blue as his right eye, maybe not even as blue as that. Clouds find a way to shift. Moving toward him, like we all do. Like I want to do right now.
Our years have now become days. We change nothing. We do nothing different. For certainty and love requires surrender to the forces of nature. A deer walks into the water and stands near me drinking loudly. Its side constricts and contracts—a life that does not care who we are because we are just like it. One who drinks. One who moves. One who watches the sky and feels the earth.
The pen stops and he looks at me over his notebook and perhaps he’s smiling. I can’t tell because the sun has burst through the dancing clouds and turned him into a being a light. “Free,” I think I hear him say, and just like the bluebird he takes flight. His wings sound like music.
I’ve struggled to find words to process the last few years.
We’ve collectively lived through something hard.
Impossibly hard.
I can’t write about the enormity of the experience, so I’ll take it to the personal micro-level.
I lost my grandmother to Covid. I didn’t get to say goodbye and we didn’t have a funeral for her.
My son had two terrible accidents. They were scary. I relive them daily and I hold him too close.
My daughter didn’t react well to social distancing. Her light dimmed so much I felt I might lose her.
Our family was together all the time, but somehow things got messy and convoluted. The undercurrent of fear kept us on edge, too internal, and we became strange to each other.
I want to move forward and say 2022 is the year it all changes, but it feels like rebuilding a puzzle without knowing the picture, and some of the pieces could be missing. It’s an uneasy feeling.
Yet, I’m going to try anyway.
Trying for me looks like refocusing on daily journaling, the short story challenge, and recommitting to posting to this blog. I’m moving my body and cooking dinner. I’m taking vitamins and sticking to a budget. I cleaned my closets. I’m making plans with friends.
These are important steps forward, creating new focus and new habits.
But if I learned anything from watching the Muppet Christmas Carol on repeat all December, we have to live in the past, present, and the future.
Not everything during the last two years was awful.
The dark night sky had some glittery stars, and they were incredibly beautiful.
Can I show you?
There was time to watch the sunrise and the sunset.
We drew this chalk mural for our neighbors to see as they walked by our house. We also hung hearts and paper cranes in our front window. It gave us a purpose and made us feel more connected to the outside world.
There was more time to spend outdoors, and we hiked a lot.
My sweet nephew got in on the hiking, too. Silly faces were a requirement.
We did an online challenge of trying to copy famous paintings. I think we nailed it.
We snuck away to a beach house during the lockdown, and took a walk on the empty beach. It began to rain, and we saw starfish everywhere. We lost count at 100.
I grew my first ever pumpkin, and then…
I became queen of the pumpkins.
I did some of my daughter’s school work with her and drew this beauty.
We did numerous photo shoots with Puff the Magic Hamster, who was a wonderful sport about it.
We had our own May Day, and it’s my favorite picture of us.
My son got his first car,
and my daughter grew wings.
I got to take my nephew to his first rock concert and see him light up.
I got my first tattoo, a matching wave with my best friend.
I captured this moment at the aquarium.
When I could hug my mother again, it was everything.
And when it was safe, this group got together and my heart was full.
My kids tease me because I take a lot of pictures, but I’m grateful. Looking through these memories, and there were a lot more, it helps me remember the last two years have been hard, yes, but also filled with tiny moments of beauty and joy.
I sink down into the hot water and close my eyes. It burns my skin slightly and I focus on the sensation spreading through my body. My heart begins to race and beads of sweat form on my face.
It becomes too much, and I’m forced to pull my hands, feet and head out of the water. The cold air causes the now exposed skin to cool and feel numb. I keep my eyes closed enjoying the extremities of temperature on my body.
Eventually the feelings cease as the water becomes comfortable. I wash my now slightly reddened skin and sink down peacefully until I start to wrinkle. Then I steady myself for the jolt of cold as I plunge out of the warmth into the freezing room.
Life is so tremendously wavering. The polarity of just an hour can sometimes make me feel like my limbs are being torn in opposite directions. The unpredictability can be exciting and pleasant, but often it leaves me feeling battered.
I need little constants to keep it all tied together. The rhythm of my day tethers me to reality and prevents another slip down the rabbit hole of depression. I’m like a child who will forgo sleep and eat nothing but sugar when given complete freedom. I need structure.
This brings me to Project 365. Last year on this exact day, I decided to try this little photo experiment. I charged myself with taking a picture of something I was thankful for every day for the entire year.
Last night I posted my final picture.
I did it. Every day of 2014, I took at least one picture of my life and posted it to Instagram and Facebook. I didn’t miss a single day, even when sick, stressed, traveling, my phone died or I was drunk. Nothing stopped me from my daily picture.
This might not seem like a huge deal, but it is to me. What started as a way to shift my focus to the blessings around me, morphed into something much bigger than that. It became my end of day routine and a way to chronicle my life. It’s my tether.
All month I have been pondering if I will do it again. Are people sick of seeing my daily photos? Will they roll their eyes and think I’m being self-centered? Bragging?
Yet as I look back on my year in photos today, I am suddenly unconcerned with what others think.
It’s time to do it all over.
Life continues on, and this is one way I make sense of it all.
No, I am not a great photographer. It is true that there are more pictures of alcohol, clouds and books than I would have ever guessed. It’s true that I am a grown woman who actually thinks selfies are fun, and that I find my kids more darling than just about anything else in the world.
It’s also true, that none of that matters. That everyone’s life is worth chronicling in anyway they find meaning and peace. There is nothing wrong with doing what makes you feel happy and will keep you marching along.
If you are interested, my Instagram is bridgettetales. Inspired to join in the fun? Please send me a request to follow you, as I’d love to see what you come up with.
As they filed passed her, she grabbed a smooth stone from the basket and placed it into their waiting hands. In silence they accepted the stone and lined up outside the classroom.
For the next 20 minutes or so they walked in complete silence. Some clutched the stone toward their chest. Others tossed it in the air occasionally letting it fall to the ground. All were silent.
They followed their teacher as she led them off the school campus, across the street, through the neighborhood to a well-worn path that cut down to the river.
Forming a line along the river’s edge, the children watched their teacher and mimicked her movements. She held the stone out in front of her with both hands. She closed her eyes. When she opened them she threw the stone out into the river and watched the ripple cascade out from where it fell. Recognizing their cue, all the children started tossing in their stones. They stood quietly watching where they fell.
Stepping back from the river they formed a circle.
“Would anyone like to share what they were thinking about?”
Hands raised very quickly.
“I was thinking how I need to be nicer to my brother.”
“I want to do more things for my dog.”
“I want to work on my patience.”
“I think I can listen to my mom more.”
After sharing, the class sang several songs they had prepared for the day. The songs were filled with glee and hopefulness.
The walk back was anything but quiet. Lots of silliness, giggling and reflection.
“That was weird not talking, but cool.”
“I think we could have surprised a deer!”
“I’m proud of our class.”
Once in the classroom they had the traditional snack of apples and honey.
The teacher then presented the children with a new stone and said “Shanah Tovah,” which means “Good Year.”
The stones that were thrown in the river represented things to “cast off” from the previous year. The new stone represents the year to come.
This was my sons third grade class celebrating Rosh Hashanah. He attends a charter Waldorf school and it’s part of the third grade curriculum. They have been learning, through story and watercolor painting, the creation story. Rosh Hashanah is the “anniversary” of the creation of Adam and Eve.
These are 8- and 9-year-old children who walked in complete silence for almost 30 minutes AND participated in self-reflection.
Love this.
Next week the children will be building temporary structures called sukkah’s and the week will culminate in an evening feast for all the families.
Love this too.
I feel so lucky to have witnessed this beautiful example of reverence and reflection that is at the heart of Waldorf education.
I was even able to cast my own stone into the water. As I watched it sink to the bottom I tried to let all my pain, anger and sadness sink with it.
I’m doing work, my friends. I am starting to feel hope. Thanks for all the kind words and hugs. They have not gone unnoticed or unappreciated.
Bridgette Tales 