Get real {personal}

This post is part of a blog circle. Check out the next link in the circle, Felicia Chang.

Ten years ago, we discovered the seed of an avocado sending out a small root, and after a few weeks of sprouting in a glass jar, it became a house plant. It has traveled with us from Arizona to Georgia, from apartment to apartment, and now lives in the "dining" room (where not much dining occurs, though lots of other work happens there). It moves along slowly, surviving on a pattern of accidental neglect and occasional attention. And after an adolescence where it grew several feet in a year, it's added only a few inches since settling into a carefully pruned indoor life.

We recently found these small mushrooms growing at the base. They shriveled and faded after a few weeks, but they were beautiful (and a little frightening) and made for some interesting conversations with the little one--who is himself, evolving much without my intervention it seems.

The tree will likely never reach it's full potential, as it's limbs have been cut and it struggles for light, even next to a bright window. Outdoors, it would likely grow to over thirty feet, and in the right conditions, might produce fruit. Though as with most trees grown from seed, the chances are likely low.

Natalie Goldberg, in her book "Writing Down the Bones" has this to has this to say (and it seems appropriate here):

It takes a while for our experience to sift through our consciousness. For instance, it is hard to write about being in love in the midst of a mad love affair. We have no perspective. All we can say is, "Im madly in love," over and over again. [...] Our senses by themselves are dumb. They take in experience, but they need the richness of sifting for a while through our consciousness and through our whole bodies. I call this 'composting.'

For a long time now, since my son was born... before even, I've suffered from chronic pain. Deep, toothache like pain that kept me awake at night, along with a host of other symptoms. Heart palpitations, numbness and tingling in my hands, muscle spasms, tremors, migraines, visual disturbances. Ones that necessitated scans, bloodwork, etc. Though that's pretty much par for the course these days. Only recently, through meditation, and intuitive movement, through acceptance of what doctors have told me, through ownership of my own responsibility and ability to manage my physical and mental state, have I have to some understanding and relief.

It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation. In a way, I've been curling around my heart. Collapsing.

Fortunately, as far as serious things go, this isn't that much. My hips are out of alignment. One of my knees sounds like it's tumbling stones. Sometimes I can't turn my head. Or pick up my child. Or pick up my camera. There's a catchall for that last part one of my physicians calls Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. Some doctors debate the validity of a TOS diagnosis, much as they do Fibromyalgia or other similarly encapsulating terms that essentially are a name for you've not got these other (more or less serious) things...

The good news is that it's manageable. Intentional, focused yoga practice several times a day. Less time at the computer, at the wheel... management of my stress levels. I can carry my camera again and not spend the next four or five days in recovery. The all-day migraines are pretty much gone. I can sleep again.

But it's likely I'll have to continue as a hobbyist. It's unlikely that I'll ever be able to make photography a full-time job. But part-time gives me space and time for other projects. It gives me time for me to take care of myself. To take care of my family. To take care of the people who step in front of my camera.

To step in front of it myself.

Over the next few months, I'll be taking on projects of my choosing. Investigating what photography means to me, in this new space. With this new acceptance. I hope you'll come along with me as I continue to sift my experience through a conscious lens. As the accumulated detritus of these last thirty-plus years finally gets put to good use, released into the wild, and allowed to evolve where it may.