So I’m 11 days behind with this Reverb10 thing and need to do a little catching up! I’m going to try to make it short and sweet!

Day 1 One Word – one for 2010 and one for 2011

For 2010 the word is Closure. Four years and two miscarriages later, we’re done and we’re happy. Another child would have been wonderful but now I am able to see how having one child gives me the joy of being a mother and yet frees me to make a difference in the lives of many! And for 2011, Dream is the word! I am going to Dream big! I have been somewhat of an observer the last five years in my professional world: the healthcare system. And there are so many things that just make no sense! So I am dreaming big about how I can make a difference! That means having big dreams about what my dream job is. I’ve already begun to dream and 2011 will be the year to make it happen!

Day 2 Writing – What gets in the way?

Everything! I am a total procrastinator! I love the idea of writing and I often think of things to write about but when writing doesn’t come easy, which I know is true for most people, it’s so easy to find every reason you don’t have time. Especially when most days the only way I would ever have time would be to either sit down at 9pm after a very busy day or get up at 5am before the day starts. And I like my sleep so that’s no small task!

Day 3 Moment

It was earlier this year when my work day started with a call to the pediatric intensive care unit. There had a been a horrible accident and six year old girl who was to have her first day at school the next day was dying. I spent the day with her wonderful family, trying my best to help in some small way as the day unfolded upon them. It may seem strange that this day made me feel alive but when you confront death and how powerless we truly are over it, I felt a hightened awareness of my life and what is truly important.I felt such a strong desire to not waste one single second with mindlessness and complaining!

Day 4 Wonder

This year I have tried to really live the photographic life. To me that means to take every moment and think about what visually appeals about it, to find WONDER in the cracks in the sidewalk as I walk to work or the young family I drive by walking their kids to school each morning. I can’t always take a picture but I see it in my mind.

And for all you on Day 12! Wait for me! I’m coming!

I took some time away from blogging to make  space in my life and mind so I could  jump into the photographic life with both feet. And it’s been wonderful. So much has happened in the last few months to completely confirm that this is the path for my creativity. Summary: possible project at RISD, saw Mary Ellen Mark not once but twice, CE class at RISD, and lots of reading and looking at images online! As I’ve said before, I can’t (don’t really want to) quit my day job but I’m thinking about photography kind of like breathing. You do it be cause you have to, because it feels good. Taking pictures that is the constant behind all the other roles you fill. It is not another role or project but something that sustains you!

My first venture into photography was back when digital was very new. I took a community ed class and everyone was still using film. I have to admit it was very difficult  and expensive to learn!  Not long after my Dad gave me a very nice digital for the time and I just couldn’t put it down.  I was amazed at how much I was able to learn about exposure with the instant feedback. That led to a DSLR shortly after my daughter was born but I was still thinking of myself as someone taking snapshots of their family. Pretty much my daughter was my life and breath not leaving much room to think about anything else! The pictures I took then were for me and for my M’s future. The memories of our time together. I hope I never lose sight of those moments in search of “bigger” moments. When I’m at the end of my life, I know that where ever this photographic life has taken me it will be the memories I captured for my family that will mean the most.

So much more to say about this journey but M has just arrived for breakfast so need to wrap up!

So here’s the latest snippit. I’m taking a class and this week we have to do portraits of someone we know and someone we don’t know very well. And no children which rules out the usual subjects! I really like the challenge of taking pictures with a purpose but I don’t like the time frame. A week is not nearly long enough to do the kind of work I would want anyone to see. Mostly because I really only get one brief shot at it. This will be our fourth assignment and although I’m enjoying it the information is coming much too slowly. I have to remember to pace myself and not lose sight of what is most important in the process! I’ll try to post some of my work from the other classes on flickr this weekend. Feel free to give me a little feedback!

It’s funny how just changing the way you think about yourself changes the way you look at things. This week, in between running around like a crazy person trying to meet the demands at work, I really thought about myself as a photographer and took a few bold steps in that direction. I found  a wonderful local photographer, John Foraste, emailed him to see if he would meet with me and let me pick his brain and he said YES! We are planning to meet in  a week for breakfast no less and I am just so excited to really talk with someone who has spent their life as a photographer.

I also finally contacted Dennis Hlynsky, a contact I was given at RISD. And guess what, he also responded right away. He had some very interesting things to say. What struck me most is that he really encouraged me to find a way to do the project I have in mind on my own, to find a way to remove any limitations and to own my idea.  I thought that as soon as I told him I was an “amateur” photographer and a social worker, he would dismiss me and send me straight to the continuing ed program. He did just the opposite and really spoke to me with respect for my idea and validation of my passion. After talking with him, I’ve decided that I’m going to put my project in a safe place for now and focus on building my skill. I still have so much to learn about how to capture the image I have in my mind.

The great thing is, with the internet, so much material is available and free! I have found more than several photographers whose work I want to study, like Mary Ellen Mark, Fazal Sheikah, David Duchemin, and Ed Kashi and Dawoud Bey. And I was so thrilled to discover the Center for Photography at Woodstock. They have some amazing weekend workshops and only three hours away! I may not get there this summer but I’m going to try to develop my portfolio in preparation for next summer!

And after much research, the Nikon D90 is what I have my eye on. Now I just have to save a few more pennies. Good thing is the D50 I have has taken many great pictures and will continue to do so until I can get my hands on the D90.  Hopefully soon you will see more of my images here as I figure out the best way to display them. Until then be sure to check out my flickr account!

• I have a job that not only pays the bills but 80% of the time is very rewarding.  Anything that takes me away from my daughter had better be extremely important.  I found that trying to build a blog was feeling like a second job with fleeting rewards.  The intensity of trying to post every day and comment on other blogs regularly left me distracted and not very available to my family even when I was home.
• I don’t want to blog with the  agenda of building a business that will make money. Even if I committed every free moment, sure, I might make enough in a year to buy a new camera but at what cost. I have a job with a decent salary so if a camera is so important then just go buy it!
• I want to connect with real people both online and in person who are interested in a friendship. I don’t want to comment on other sites in hopes they will comment on mine or their readers will comment on mine for the main purpose of building my traffic. I want to connect with  people who I can share with and learn from.
• I want to be a photographer, no, I am a photographer. There I’ve said it. And I want to be a documentary photographer. There I’ve said that too. If I do anything with my free time, I want to be  capturing real  life in images. Through the last six months of blogging and reading others blogs, many about photography and creativity, I’ve realized what I love about photography is capturing honest moments, the ones that tell a story or ask a question. I’ve found an intersection between my creative life and my work life. Technically I am a clinical social worker but in essence I am a listener. My heart is filled with 20 years of the most amazing stories of resiliency, pain, reconciliation, grief, and love.  These are the stories of real life and I want to capture them in photographs and share them with the world.

• I don’t need to quit my day job to be a photographer. In fact I really don’t want to run a photography business. I want to take pictures that will tell a story and maybe make a difference.  It will take some time away from my daughter, but I hope she will learn, by my example, to follow her dreams and live life passionately.

And here is the plan:

• I have a dream and I need a dream team so I am going to seek out real live people in my community who I can share my ideas with, who will encourage me and guide me to realizing my dream and not giving up when I’m feeling like I’m not good enough.
• I  am going to start blogging again but this time I’m going to blog about my creative journey with little mind to how many people are reading. I hope there are like minded people out there pursuing their own dream that will say hello and share their journey. I hope those reading will encourage me and remind me that I am good enough. I realized how much I need encouragement this past week when I shared with someone what I’m really passionate about and she said, without hesitation, “I think you would be really good at that!”  I couldn’t hold back the tears!
• I’m going to get a new camera(as soon as I sell my old one!)
• This blog is going to be about my journey to change the world in some small way through pictures  and not  about building a popular blog. Some of it will stay the same and some of it will change.
• I am going to stop being afraid of getting out there and documenting the stories of the people living in my community: the struggling family, the elderly, the illegal immigrants, the everyday people, the unemployed, the uninsured.  They all have a story we can learn from.
• My family will always come first. My husband and daughter are my first dream come true. Time with my daughter will stay my number one priority.  I will not spend my time with her distracted. I will carve out time to pursue this dream and move slowly forward. Some day she will be off pursuing her own dreams and then I can pick up the pace. Hopefully I’ve got another 40 years. I think that’s enough time!

And if you have a small dream whispering in your ear here are some of the people who have helped me realize mine and who I plan to continue to follow until my dream is a reality.

• Tracey Clark – I am enough
• Seth Godin’s new book  Linchpin
• Todd Henry of  Accidental Creative
• David duChemin of Pixelated Image
• Chris Guillebeau of The Art of Nonconformity
• Tara Sage Steeves of Create Your Life (an old friend I serendipitously ran into a couple months ago!)

These are folks who will feed your creative soul! I’d give them each a big hug if I could!(look out, Tara, I know where you live!) And a big thanks(I’ve already hugged them a few times) to my husband, my mother, my father, Claudia, Heather, Heidi, and Marianne! Thanks for listening, encouraging and most of all helping so I can have the time to pursue my passions!

When I Am Among the Trees

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness,
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”

~ Mary Oliver ~

The other book is A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller. I have heard that he writes about faith and I am feeling the need for a little centering which for me comes through my faith. I am a few chapters in and so far he is talking about story not faith but I am really enjoying  it. What I’m taking from it  is the idea that discontent with life comes from lack of  a good story.  For example, here I have a full time job and a family but I find myself frequently thinking about photography and blogging. Why? Because my job has lost it’s story, I know how to do it pretty well and I don’t feel inspired or challenged. I love my family and they are my greatest source of joy but maintaining the status quo at home is not enough of a story for me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I am unhappy with my life but I do feel like I spread myself too thin in search of something and I’m trying to figure out what that something is! Maybe I need a new story, same characters, just a new plot line.

Well, need to get back to reading as my one free hour of the day is almost up!

giving

I first wrote about our journey way back at the beginning of March and, well, not much has changed! We are continuing to try to get pregnant with the basic efforts (temp taking and OPKs) and occasionally we talk about the ups and downs of adoption. I have done a some reading on the web but its only left me more confused and unsure about adoption. There are some wonderful posts about adoption from people who were adopted like Kristen Kardos at KIDOINFO and those who have adopted like Kelly over at The Miller Mix.  In fact the majority of information is positive. The problem is the negative stories are hard to ignore and seem to be getting in the way of really committing.

Ideally we would love to adopt a toddler but I have learned that the only way you can really do that is if you start out as a foster parent and hope that the mother is unsuccessful in getting her child back. It just doesn’t seem right to go into  a foster role with an agenda. If we didn’t have an almost four year old who wants more than anything to be a big sister, I think we could approach foster parenting with no expectations.  I would hate to put her through unnecessary heart ache at such a young age. If she were 8 or even 6 and could better understand the whole situation that would be different. Even then I’m not sure it would be worth it. So I don’t think foster to adoption is for us, not right now anyway.

And then domestic infant adoption seems wrought with uncertainty. First off, the  whole idea of selling ourselves feels very overwhelming. Then there are the stories of mothers pushed into making an adoption plan (amazingly it happens in this country too). It just seems the chances of finding someone who is sure enough of themselves to make an adoption plan with out regret is slim and then they would have to pick us out of the thousands of families waiting to adopt. And I can’t help think about those couples with no children and wonder if I should be competing with them when we already have an amazing child of our  own.

The main obstacle for us remains that any adoption journey is not a sure thing and as I said before, after being on the rollercoaster of infertility I’m just not ready to get on another rollercoaster. Maybe that’s why we just keep talking and haven’t taken any action. Maybe we just need a break. We need to recover from the first ride before we’ll know if we want to get on another one.