Ok, so, I'm getting back in the blogging game
Back in the day, I used to blog every shoot I did and I stopped because it felt like it was taking too much of my time. But the cool kids (at least the kids with cameras in their hands) seem to be saying blogging is the thing to do. So, here I am, showing back up in this way.
And I do love to write, so I'll take this as a sign from the universe to let the words flow... and post some pretty pictures alongside them.
I'm going to start with a personal share that I posted to my instagram last week when I took a walk and the words just poured out of me. Words about my oldest son, who is about to be a Freshman in high school and I can still remember with my full body how it felt when I could hold his little body on my chest. He is now 6'3" tall and when I hug him my head lines up with his chest. So wild to think I grew that human!! Also wild to think of the human I was before him.
I remember learning that when we grow babies in our bodies we keep their DNA with us long after giving birth. This makes so much sense to me. It's known as "fetal microchimerism," this phenomenon allows the baby’s cells to persist for decades, and sometimes a lifetime, often aiding in tissue repair and healing. Fetal cells migrate into the mother's body during pregnancy, cross the placenta, and settle into her tissues and organs, including the brain, heart, and liver. My boy. He sure has aided in repair and healing. It feels like I raised us both simultaneously. Together we continue to learn and grow, and I feel this will be the case forever.
If Time were Water
As the high school forecasting sheet comes home and we come face to face with the next big milestone in life, I find myself feeling so graspy around time.
When they were little time was an ice cube that I could hold, it melted slowly… too slowly at times. Painfully slow in my hands some days. And I felt it all. It was beautiful and it was so hard too. But now, all the sudden, the ice cubes have all melted and I’m trying to grab at running water. I see the words “you have already spent the most time with your child than you ever will”. And I want to believe that that can’t be true, but logic tells me that it actually is. And then that running water that I am desperate to hold onto turns my eyes into the faucet that it pours from. The tears begin as sad tears but then shift into these tears of joy and gratitude for how incredibly beautiful it is to be human. To be a mom. To have a child. To feel it all. All the love. All the pain. What a total privilege to be able to feel. To remember. Why would anyone choose not to feel it all? Not to hold it all? I ask myself often, but the heartbroken parts of me remind me and I fully understand why some people have to make that choice.
Then I pause, and make a promise to myself that I will forever and ever be a person who chooses to lean into the tears and the pain and the memories. And I will look back at the pictures, on my walls and in my mind, knowing that it is through feeling the hard that we get to fully experience the beauty of it all.
I will continue to grasp as I learn how to let go. What a gift.
I also just got back from seeing Brandi Carlile in concert and oof.... hearing "You Without Me" hit so much harder in person and now I'll never hear it quite the same.
Give it a listen. But here are the lyrics, incase you're not in a place where you can let the tears flow. :)
Oh
Was your smile always crooked? Was the freedom ever free?
Do you kick the rocks between your feet, after all this time with me?
You can listen to your own records now, decide what you believe
You can pray on stars and skip the gods like stones across the sea
But I would know you anywhere, I lost myself in you
Heavy are the hands that you are free to slip right through
Do what you have to do
There you are, my morning star, I wondered when you'd show
Give me just a quick thumbs up, a wink before you go
I never heard that voice before today, I remind myself to breathe
There you are, it's just you without me
I'm late to another game, I guess I never learned the rules
I showed up with a broken name and handed it to you
I'm not sure if you can fix it now, but if you wanted to
I would follow you around and carry all your tools
I would know you anywhere, I found myself in you
Heavy are the hands that hold the changes you go through
Do what you have to do
There you are, my morning star, I wondered when you'd show
Give me just a quick thumbs up, a wink before you go
I never heard that voice before today, I remind myself to breathe
There you are, it's just you without me
Without me
As predictable as time and age, but comforting in some strange way
Time makes every one of us an absolute cliché
But when I met you face to face, none of it was true
So who am I if I'm not you?
There you are, my morning star, I wondered when you'd show
Give me just a quick thumbs up, a wink before you go
I never heard that voice before today, I remind myself to breathe
I'm ever just a thought away, if ever you need me
You're gonna live a lot of life, you're gonna see a lot of years
God willing, just you without me
There you are, just you without me
Without me
Without me
