It’s happened to me time and again, I take my camera out on a photo walk and everything is all wrong. The light is flat, the scenery dull and uninteresting. I wonder what I’m doing out in the cold and wind, and I just want to give up and go home.
There’s nothing to see here. I’m wasting my time.
Then, I look a little closer.
It never fails. A closer look always leads to something special.
I just discovered this site, which plays the sound of rain. Sooooo relaxing. http://www.rainymood.com/
It’s been said that there are few pictures of me where I’m not hiding behind a camera.
That might be true. But, since it’s my birthday, and I’m in a celebratory mood, I thought I’d just prove that there are a few pictures of me sans camera.
Also, since I was going through old photos, I got sucked into a vortex of Gem’s old baby photos. Seriously, people, I have the coolest kid. (This still counts as a picture of me, check out the reflection in her glasses.)
Our 4-year-old asked for a pencil and paper. We were at my husband’s office visiting, and she developed an urgent need for writing implements. We handed them over, and Aaron and I continued our conversation – till we noticed she was writing something.
She was copying down the Arabic alphabet from a graph in the book. Her initiative, her drive, her curiosity, her thirst for knowledge and understanding never cease to amaze me.
Of course I took a picture.
Then when I went to post the picture on Instagram/Facebook, I hesitated.
There have been so many posts rolling around complaining about moms who do nothing but brag on their kid on their Facebook page. I thought about it again, and hesitated again.
Then I posted this on Facebook:
I know I post a lot about how awesome my kid is – and I know it can get annoying. Too bad. Every kid needs someone who pays attention, who notices what’s unique and amazing about them, who champions them. I wish every kid had that. So if you want to post on facebook about how awesome some kid is, some amazing thing they said or did, some spark of genius, or creativity, or compassion you noticed in a young person – rock on. The world needs more of that too.
It wasn’t till that post started generating some positive response, that I finally worked up the nerve and posted the picture about my daughter above.
But why did I hesitate in the first place?
Why do I place so much stock in the opinion of whiners?
On a logical level, I don’t give a crap what everyone else thinks – but there’s that little girl, deep down inside me still desperate for acceptance and approval. I grew up with an overwhelming fear of being obnoxious and annoying; it was one of my greatest fears, and it kept me isolated.
I have this idea of who I am, and who I think I should be. I think I should be someone who is not driven by fear, especially fear of the opinions of others.
Then I take a look at my behavior and it doesn’t always match.
I think my choices as a parent should be based on what will best help my daughter to grow into a strong and compassionate woman of integrity, but what I do is different. I watch myself making parenting choices based on what I think will negatively or positively impact my popularity. It takes me right back to Freshman locker banks at my high school – an anxiety ridden place, indeed.
This entire scenario reminded me of Ira Glass talking about how a creative person’s sense of taste develops before their skill, so there is this gap between what they think they should be doing and what they’re actually able to do.
That story was life-changing for me.
It’s not just about creativity
While Glass was being specific about creativity, I think his point carries over to many other aspects of our lives.
We have this vision of the world, we have this vision of what it means to be a good parent, a good person… We see how our own attitudes and behaviors play into that vision. We know we want to “be the change.”
But there is this gap.
You don’t just wake up one morning and decide to be different, better, and that’s it, done. It takes practice. Years of practice.
But life happens in the meantime. We are all living in the meantime – in the gap.
We don’t get practice time, and then go out and live our lives after we’ve perfected ourselves. We go out and try things, see if they work, we fall down, we get up, we embarrass ourselves, we don’t die of embarrassment – but we don’t get to practice life without an audience. And that audience usually has an opinion. It doesn’t matter.
Life is not about perfection. It’s about doing the best we can, and when we miss the mark, learning from it, course correcting, and moving on.
We need to remember to be gentle with ourselves, to remember that we’re living in the gap. To just keep trying.
And when someone else offends us, well, maybe they’re living in the gap, too.
So here I am, waxing on about wishing I could be as brave as I think I should be, and my little girl just wanted to practice writing new letters. I’m so proud of her, and I want the whole world to know it.
P.S. She calls the Arabic alphabet “letter parties.”
I toyed with the idea of a photography show intermittently for a couple years, but something always stopped me. I couldn’t imagine working up the courage to approach someone about showing my work. I wasn’t sure my work was good enough.
I was scared – scared of both failure and success.
Then one day in the middle of a conversation with the owner of a coffee shop that I just adore, I took a deep breath and then blurted out a question that was something along the lines of “how do you select artists for your exhibits?” I can’t remember exactly how I asked, I could hear my pulse in my ears. But I chose well; the person I asked was one of the nicest people I know. By the end of the conversation, I had a show booked for October, nine months away at that time.
Of course, there was quite a bit of work left to do, but I managed to get it all done, and showed up October first to hang 25 pieces with the help of my unpaid intern:
she was a lot of help. [ahem]
I can’t express what it felt like to see my work up on the walls.
Even better, we had a reception for the exhibit, with live music, a wine tasting, tasty bites, and my friends showed up to support me. I had so much fun that I didn’t take any pictures during the party, and that never happens. I will always remember that party – especially when I think about doing something that scares me. To top it all off, I sold a bunch of pictures, too.
Now, I’m working on setting up an Etsy shop.
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