One Moment

Sometimes I look at my reflection in the mirror and don’t recognize the eyes staring back at me. Who is that person, hidden in there? 

Embrace the “now"...

It is to snatch that feeling of being fully alive that I am reckless, if for only the tiniest glimmer of a moment. But never can I feel so alive as when I separate from the “me” created to please the world, let loose the hurricane inside, and grab hold and live, feel, breathe, touch, this moment; this reality; this now.

Wake up.

Sometimes I want to grab the person I see in the mirror and shake them.

I learn a lot about myself, continually. And I wonder. Will it ever stop? I think not. I think this creation of myself will never stop. That’s what it is—a creation. 

We can not dig through murky waters of our pasts to discover who we are, who we were meant to be. That person, good or bad, is gone. Trying to “get him back” leaves us in a fragmented state, growth stunted, blind to anything but that elusive version of ourselves we perceive to have been the “real” or “right" version. 

All of life is an evolutionary process. To not periodically shed the old skin and recreate ourselves into something new is tragedy, I think. Fear. Holding too tightly to the assumed security of the past. We are not who we were yesterday, or a year ago, or before this or that happened. To try to be is not the task. It’s about who we will be in an hour, tomorrow, a year from now, but most of all, who we will be right now. 

This moment.

Because this moment is all we have.

Gone Raw.

Precisely seventeen days ago, I embarked on a new sort of adventure known as raw veganism (I have to keep some form of adventure in my life at all times, for the sake of sanity). What exactly does that entail? Well, let me explain.

For the past seventeen days, I have eaten nothing but raw fruits and veggies, with the occasional nut and sprout thrown in. Nothing cooked. No meat. Dairy. Grains.  Ice cream.

It’s been great fun.

I feel like I have to spend large portions of every day stuffing my face to get in the required number of calories. Fruits & veggies are extremely low cal, so think about it…

Here’s a sample day of food:

10 bananas

2 bags of spinach

1 bag of grapes

2 mangoes

1 head of broccoli

1 avocado

5 pears

1 cantaloupe

This is what I have learned.

1. Eating cooked food keeps you warm in a way you don’t realize until it’s not.

2. People give you really odd looks when you take your lunch break at work and pull ten bananas out of your bag and proceed to eat them, one after one.

3. Staying stocked up on that much fresh produce is impossibly expensive.

4. I like meat.

So. This recent venture will probably end sometime in the (very) near future (unless, that is, someone from a banana plantation happens to read this and decide to start sending me crates of bananas every week…)

But, it’s been a good journey.

Steak, please? 

Drops of Dew

Flakes...

This is Charleston.

It's not supposed to snow.

And it doesn't, usually.

It hasn't really snowed since 1989.

But last night, it did.

It snowed hard.

It was wet, it was cold, and it was beautiful.

It made for a fairytale wedding. 

Once upon a time...

...There was a girl named Ireland. 

She was, without a doubt, one of the most mischievous little girls ever born. 

Feet.

Foggy Light

-A Portrait-

Explorations

Tiny Details

..An Ancient Promise..

Princess Bride

I think that at least once in her lifetime, every girl ought to be able to feel like a princess.

Just to know what it feels like.

What does that mean?

It means to feel attractive in a world that most of the time makes you feel decidedly unattractive.

Special.

Valuable.

Secure in the identity of an inherent worth.

What does it look like?

It can look like anything, I think--that's the beauty of it.

But today, it looked like this.

A Princess Bride.

She is truly lovely, with or without a bridal gown.

But, sometimes the truth can seem--to us-- to be buried under layers and layers of other feelings and is unable to be felt at all.

Not that I'd know, but I'd imagine that satin and pearls help it to be felt a little more clearly.

Just a guess.

I hope that for the two hours we spent together, at least, Cheryl felt like the most beautiful princess in the world.

And I hope that every time she sees the photographs, she'll remember what it felt like.

..Sand..

Summer would be a great time to be jobless, due to the extreme proximity of some of the most gorgeous beaches I have ever seen in my life. But a jaunt to the beach is lovely any time of year, even in the dead of winter (winter, of course, being a relative term…)

I never realize how windy it is until I’m on the island, and my camera and I were nearly blown away today. The beach was a haze of blowing sand as fine as sugar. In just a few months, that same sand will be baked by the sun until it’s a danger to incautious toes. I can’t wait.

Flickers of Light

There’s something about candles that whispers a soothing peace into the atmosphere.

But beyond the aesthetic appeal, they are an absolute necessity in my light-less, lamp-less room. If the house ever goes up in smoke, I take full responsibility. But in the meantime, the Chez Luz will be a place of numerous little glows and peace and a cacophony of scents that jumble together to be entirely indecipherable.

My brother is visiting me this week. Ridiculously photogenic, he humors me by allowing me to photograph him. Repeatedly.

He also helped me paint the ocean on my wall. He is spectacular.

Icicles, Icicles

This pitiful flower stopped me in my tracks on my morning run. I can totally feel its pain, even though I don’t have icicles hanging from me. The new year has brought an unexpected temperature drop that not even the bright sunshine can make up for.

An Uncertain Sort of Stability

Signing that lease was the scariest thing I’ve done all year. Granted, the year is only four days old, but the terror will no doubt linger throughout the rest of 2010, springing up at the most unexpected of moments to make my heart skip a beat.

But after I shove the terror out of sight, it is replaced by something that, in all of its trepidation and expectation, resembles excitement.

This gypsy won’t be living out of a suitcase this year. Who would have thought?

Jade

I brought the ocean into my room today. It’s called Jade, is smeared all over my hands and feet, and smells of paint; but in my mind it’s the crashing waves of an ocean that will allow my restless heart to feel a bit more at home.

Home. I feel like an alien stuck in the midst of a mess of boxes and dust and chaos. I’ve come to the realization that I dislike moving, unless it involves simply packing one’s belongings into a suitcase and skipping continents.

Too cluttered.

..A Change of Scenery..

Today, the three of us chicas pack our lives and dreams into a frightfully large truck and move across town to a little street called Lakeside.

No more running to catch the sunset from Pitt Street Bridge.

No more boasting of being "just around the corner" from Sully's.

But we will still be close to the beach.

There will still be a palm tree outside the kitchen window.

So, it will be alright.

Project 365

I only have one formal goal for the year.

[Besides learning to surf and being able to make my rent payments every month.]

A Picture a Day…all 365 days of 2010.

I’m off to a rough start, thanks to an injury suffered by my camera on our flight to Indiana for the holiday that has resulted in him being out of my life for the next month. However, that complication simply makes way for greater creativity and ingenuity.

It will be called Project365 and you are welcome to come along for the journey, or to sit out until 2011 when the picture frenzy has passed. Either way, we will be here, my camera and I, capturing snippets of life as we walk out the year.

They may occasionally be great. More often, they will probable be completely random and sometimes even quite horrid. But rather than a project of artistic precision, it is to be a project of documentation and seeing.