Just sit with it.

At the start of 2020, I received a fairly typical inquiry for a photo session from a potential client: her name was Mitra, and she was inquiring about a Signature Fine Art piece inspired by her daughter and love of all things Disney. Then the pandemic hit, and our photography session discussions halted.

A few months later, I noticed this same woman’s name popping up on Facebook. “Mitra” isn’t exactly a common name, so it naturally jumped out at me. Turned out we were in quite a few photography groups together. She was looking to start a photography business, and specifically a mentor to help her in the process. Being a huge advocate for women in the creative industry and passionate as I am about “community over competition”, I reached out to her and offered my services. A Mentor-Mentee relationship began.

We met a few times at a Panera equidistant from my photography studio and her home in Orlando. I taught her the basics of Lightroom editing, and she told me of her business goals. Before long, in-between chatting camera settings and Golden Hour, I found myself sharing my stories of motherhood, as Mitra shared a bit about her life with husband, dogs, and daughter. We literally broke bread together over salads and soups, chatting photography biz basics and the art of being profitable in an over-saturated industry … along with pet peeves in the home, favorite music, and stories of growing up — she grew up Persian in a Muslim household, I grew up white and Christian

After a few meetings, I realized i was letting down my guard. I try to maintain a level of genuineness in any relationship, but in professional dealings, I keep it …. well, professional. But something about this woman felt “safe” and disarming; she was smart, beautiful, and confident (quite unlike my scattered, awkward, and self-conscious self), but strange things happen, and this was no exception —

Mitra and I were becoming friends.

In less than a year, I’ve watched Mitra blossom into a right-good photographer, doing business as Magnolia Skye Photography. And she’s modeled for me a few times (I told you, she’s beautiful). And now she and I are planning a trip up to Maine in May, to play with cameras along a rocky coast, with another gorgeous friend of mine, some big dramatic dresses, and floral headpieces, resulting (we hope) in some pretty spectacular photographic art.

But, ever the Artist, I have the proverbial “artistic temperament”. A sufferer of depression and (more immediately) S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder), I’ve really been struggling lately. Winters are hard on me. Even living in sunny Florida, the weeks between the holidays and full-blown Spring are always a time of emotional struggle — what with its grey skies and my innate yearning to be closer to the sun.

Mitra noticed, I think. She’s smart, as I said. And intuitive (which is maybe why I like her so much: no beating around the bush with this woman; she calls a spade a spade and knows the spade when she sees one). Maybe that’s why she invited me to join her in Orlando for a “play date”. We met on Walt Disney World property; we enjoyed lunch together at Disney’s Contemporary Resort; and then we indulged in a little resort hopping, cameras at the ever-ready, snapping each other in magical spots, doing what we both love doing.

But Mitra did a funny thing. Every once in awhile, she’d walk away from me and find a bench to sit on or a swing to swing on. Patting the seat beside her, she’d beckoned me to join her.

I’m not gonna lie: I found this odd behavior. Unaccustomed to pausing, I asked if I was walking too fast for her. (I am a bit taller than Mitra and most of me legs.)

“Yeah, a little … but it’s good to just sit with it,” she replied.

So we sat. And then we rose again to walk a little more, photograph a bit more … until it was time again —

“Just sit with it?” I asked?

“Yeah. You just sit with it.”

“Like ‘stop and smell the roses’?” I was trying to understand why we kept pausing. There is so much to see on Disney property, so much to experience, so much light to be photographed and terrain to be explored.

“Just sit with it.”

That was all the explanation Mitra would give. So I indulged her, even though the concept and its accompanying action was so foreign to me.

But it stuck with me. Really stuck with me. I’ve rolled that phrase around in my mind for several weeks now, ruminated on it, savored it, really gotten a taste for it.

image Magnolia Skye Photography

The last few weeks I’ve been without my usual MacBook (it’s in the shop for a new battery), so I’ve been without my usual routine, without my ability to edit photos or to feel connected to the world in that strange, technological way humans are now accustomed to. And I’ve felt completely out of my box, if I’m honest. I’ve done a bit more laundry than usual, more house work than usual, more knitting and book reading and Netflix’ing than usual.

And I’ve been thinking more than usual. Not a particularly good endeavor for someone struggling with depression on the daily, but I’ve thought and thought …. and thought some more. And in all of my thinking, I’ve grappled and wrestled with myself.

I’ve realized how very tired I am of the daily grind. Is this what burnout feels like?

I’ve realized how much harder 2020 was on me than I’d thought. I had coped so well …. but I know now I hadn’t coped at all; I’d plowed through, staying busy, constantly working, working, working. And when there was no work to be done, I’d created work to do.

I’ve realized how much time I’ve spent DOING things — keeping myself preoccupied — so I wouldn’t have to think about and grapple with the very real reality that my daughters are all leaving the nest and I will, in just a few months time, find myself utterly alone in a big, empty house, with no Mothering to be done.

image Magnolia Skye Photography

I’ve realized how I mostly seem to be running away — from my feelings, from my sadness, from my emptiness, from my fear of feeling sad and empty.

I’ve realized how I feel most days like a Human Doing, rather than a Human Being.

And I realized how vital it is, sometimes, to —

Just sit with it.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve found myself crying as I just sit with it. But as I cry and sit, I’ve realized something very powerful coming from it.

Release. And acceptance.

I think a lot of times, we stay busy so we won’t have to deal with things. That’s what I’ve learned to admit about myself, anyway. Or we stay busy so we can have some semblance of control over the perceived trauma that might happen if we decide instead to just sit with it, accept it, own it.

And I’ve realized over the last couple of weeks how wise my friend Mitra is … because it is absolutely vital that we just sit with it, that we just hold it in our hands sometimes, cry over it, grieve it, and not try to figure it out … until we’re at a place of peace, a place where it’s okay to slow down, breathe, and

Just sit with it.

Keep going, you are not there yet.

It’s been a minute. Where to even begin ….

My mind is swirling right now. Not merely because I have ADD (side note: I actually do have ADD; it’s not just a funny little quip about general scatter-brainedness, though I have that too), but because there’s a lot going on in the modern world, and in my world, and I am trying to grasp at each dangling thread, pulling them together to make some sort of cohesive meld out of dissonance.

Before I do that, let me share with you some words I found today, words written on the eve of my 43rd birthday, in December 2019. Read them, and then perhaps we’ll both begin to understand what I’m feeling in this moment:

It is said we should craft the life we desire to live, yet we live in a reality that most often pushes us in directions that are opposed to those desires. On the one hand, society hints that we should “live authentically” and “act intentionally” … even as it clamors for our attention from every direction save the very one that is the most authentic and intentioned.

I’ve felt this dissonance for many years (decades), never truly understanding it’s disharmonious nature except for those times when the unrest would settle beneath my skin and tingle, an itch that couldn’t quite be scratched, a discomfort that buzzed on the distant periphery of true consciousness. Even as I performed noble and beautiful acts — marrying my husband, mothering my children, caring for aging grandparents, donating my time and efforts to worthy causes — there was always this niggling thing, whispering to me in the driest reaches of my soul

keep going, you are not there yet

For decades I’ve chalked it up to the simple disconnect inherent in being a soul housed inside a human body, the dual reality of spirit and flesh, an ever-aching yearning for God’s presence, for heaven, for long-lost Eden amidst the broken world. And all of those super-spiritual books I’ve read, the Bible studies I attended, the fellow Believers I’ve conversed with, all of it pointed fingers at That, nodding heads, agreeing with it — and agreeing to its unattainableness.

And yet it persisted.

And so I persisted, at times crafting, to the best of my ability, the life I dream of living, one tender moment at a time, a life that included a morning of yoga followed by hot tea and avocado toast, all before the break of dawn. Another day it was the hours before lunch spent editing photographs, corresponding with clients, and planning vacations.

What sort of life do I wish to craft? Am I indeed living with full intention?

Lunch will be replaced by an English style high tea, with scones (properly pronounced "skahns") and clotted cream, finger sandwiches, and wild local honey for a personal pot of Earl Grey.

After lunch/tea, I will read nourishing books and knit comfy things, like socks and cardigans, followed by an hour-long walk in the woods with my camera before returning to my desk to edit magical, beautiful images.

Dinner will be warm things -- thick stoups with root vegetables or creamy casseroles with foraged mushrooms -- followed by an evening spent laughing at inconsequential things, with my husband and daughters, who are the most consequential of my life.

Basically, I want to be English .... in an eternal December and a sort of 2020-meets-1948 version of it. I'm nearly halfway there, what with my avocado toast and excellent photography skills. Perhaps there's hope for me.

Now it is 2021, the hangover of 2020, with its assorted and sundry emotional triggers and resultant scars, still lingering in the air above and the quagmire below.

And I am struck at how little I have changed, even as 2020 changed me — changed us all. And I am struck that I chose “intention” to be my focus word for the year 2021. And I am struck —

just struck

I can say, with absolute certainty, that I aim to continue crafting, to continue pushing forward into daily beginnings, to continue choosing intention and hope and purpose. I shall drink copious amounts of tea, and I shall concoct comforting casseroles, and I shall strike out in faith and make this year what it will be and be who I will be.

keep going, you are not there yet

But I’m closer. And I’m closing in.

Drowning & the Incurable Need to Breathe

Have you ever experienced the sensation of drowning?

I have.

I watched a YouTube video about free divers, explaining what happens when one is falling, falling, falling deeper into the darkness of water. The human body actually begins to shift bits and pieces into a tighter space to accommodate the pressure. Yes, the pressure —literally the increasing weight of water pressing in on every inch of the surface of your body. Internal organs are compressed, the heart, the lungs, the muscles — and physiologically your body conforms to fit the new shape it’s being pressed into. With it comes a decreased need for oxygen, allowing the stores gulped in at the start of the dive to be more adequate, more precisely used, as your body literally shrinks under the force being exerted by the deepening water.

And the thing I said about “falling” deeper? That’s actually not entirely accurate. After the initial period of natural buoyancy a human body experiences in water, the pressure becomes so great that instead of “falling”, you’re literally being swallowed, sucked down and down and down, the water crushing you from every possible angle, squeezing your mass into a tighter shape. The better to swallow you, my dear.

At some point, your stores of oxygen will begin to dwindle, despite your body’s best efforts at economizing, and the physical need to breathe will overrule the “freedom” in free diving. You’ll have to push yourself back up to the top, at first fighting against the pressure, and then fighting your mind against the burning of your internal organs, your lungs, your entire form as the pressure subsides and you begin again to fill out your proper, pre-dive proportions.

Between you and me, this all sounds absolutely terrifying, and I don’t understand why people do this activity for fun. In fact —

It’s an apt analogy for what an artist goes through when she’s experiencing depression — and let us be frank, an artist (like myself) experiences depression quite a lot. We have a creative epiphany, we dive in, the spirit adjusts to the pressure … but then …. that foreboding sense of sinking, lungs tightening into hard balls of aching fire, mind and limbs growing numb from the sheer will of hanging onto every last molecule of Life amid the pressing, pressing, pressing in on all sides by the world, the weather, the circumstances, the pain, all of it crushing the soul.

It’s a balance, the artistic urge set in the stage of 21st century reality. But it’s also a struggle — no, a battle, an absolute, all-out, blood and bone flying war-zone … in the mind. Sometimes the oppression is simply too much. And I’ve found, when that happens, I shut down. Like the free-diver, I’m no longer falling so much as I’m being pulled. And my oxygen stores begin to dwindle. And also like the free-diver, that’s when, somewhere deep inside, as the internal bits have been rearranged for economy, the soul having long-since shifted to accommodate, I recognize I have a choice to make.

I can sink further into the darkness and cease to exist in that vast ocean of crushing void ….

Or I can remember what it is to breathe, even if just an inkling of memory. And I can will my legs to first slow, then cease the falling, and to finally propel me upward again. It’s true, once I’ve gone that far under, the fight is all the harder, but that’s where Art comes in.

There is a saving grace in Creation. Sometimes it comes from a place of joy … but for me, more often, it’s born from my will to kick, my need to breathe. This is what, more than anything, propels me to create. When I feel myself growing numb, after the initial shock to the system (and it is always a shock, despite my having been through the ebb and flow of it a thousand times), the fight forward towards expression, that is the kick which halts the fall, the kick that silences the deepening void.

At some point, in one kick after several powerful kicks, using an inner force of will I maybe didn’t have if not for some holy and merciful external forces — like the soft touch of my spouse, a kind word from a friend, an hour of sunlight on my skin — I find I’m no longer fighting the sucking-pull, but instead sense a gentle tugging upward again. My lungs are still on fire, more so even — I am, after all, running desperately out of vital oxygen — but I feel my rib cage expanding once again, my limbs no longer dead weights but growing buoyant again. Inner parts of my body begin to shift into their proper places, and the blackness all around turns into a gentler shade of grey, until —

I burst forth, in light, the crust of water broken by air. My mouth breaks open, nostrils gulping in Life. And I am floating once again.

“Hearts are wild creatures, that's why our ribs are cages.”

THIS. IMAGE. I can't stop staring at it. I can't stop thinking about what it means to me. "Hearts are wild creatures, that's why our ribs are cages." That quote has stuck with me for about two years, when I first stumbled across it, and this image — this exact image — came to mind. I saw that quote, and FELT that quote on a soul-deep level.

But my skills hadn't caught up to me yet. So I waited. And I learned. And I thought about that quote. And I thought about how to make this image work. And even though I had no idea how I was going to manage ripping a hole in the chest of beauty and innocence — the way a hole is ripped in mine so much of the time — I knew I had to try. So this week, I went to it. I tried.

Many-hours later I was at the point of tackling that chest cavity, the torn fabric, the shredded flesh. It took me three hours yesterday to get the effect. Three hours. Maybe it's an easy thing for someone else, but I had to reason my way through that, wrap my depression-weary brain around how to accomplish it. And when I did, the entire piece became whole, and my heart felt alive, my mind buzzed, my soul sparked fire.

I can't wait to do it again. I loved that feeling, that rush of joy at making something so beautiful. I hope I can say that about what I create without sounding pompous and sure of myself. Because 99.999% of the time I don't feel sure of myself, not at all — but THIS? This is mine, and I'm owning it.