The Trampoline
In life, there are many love/hate relationships. Some that are really standing out to me currently are being in my 40s. I love my 40-year-old brain and all she has learned, but this 40-year-old body... oof. Ouch. She hurts. Social Media is another one. It can bring so much joy, laughter, and inspiration, but it can also be such a time suck and comparison trap. Then there’s springtime, when everything comes back to life, including my allergies. And a big one is my kids not being big sports kids. I always envisioned myself as a sidelines mom, and I grieve that a little, but not being committed to a sports schedule also gives us so much freedom to do other things and have more time in general. Another love/hate relationship I have is one that I know so many can relate to, and that is with our trampoline. I love the fun it brings, and I hate that it gets covered in debris and that the kids don't use it as much as I would like.
I am a part of a photographer group called MotherPhotographer, which is run by the oh-so-wonderful Laurken Kendall. Do you know about Laurken Kendall? If you don't, you should. She is someone I admired from afar for a long time, and then I took the leap and joined MotherPhotographer. It has been, without question, the best decision I have made for my business and one of the best decisions I have made for myself and my life as a whole. She has helped me unlock so much as an artist and a human. I'll leave it at that for now, but Laurken and MotherPhotographer... it is a LOVE LOVE relationship.
We are in the creative phase right now, and our latest photo project was to pick a subject and create 10 different photos using that same subject. I had no idea what I was going to use, and then I looked in the backyard at the trampoline, covered in debris, and I found my subject. I thought maybe using the trampoline in this way would also make me feel a little more love toward it— giving it a new purpose. I had no intention of including the kids, but when they saw me out there taking photos of the trampoline, they decided they wanted to jump. And I am finding more and more that the MOST important thing I do as a mom is model. Model habits, behaviors, and beliefs. We can tell people all day long what they should do, but seeing it put into action is where the real impact is.
Lately, they have observed me MAKING the time to create, and it has sparked so many fun conversations and so much more interest in what I am doing, as well as in their own creative ventures. I may not have little athletes, but I do have two wildly talented, creative, hilarious, and fascinating humans: a musician and a drawer. And I know there are so many more things they haven't shown us yet.
I definitely look at the trampoline with a newfound appreciation after this photo project. It makes me think of the famous Wayne Dyer quote: “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
So, here is my story about our Trampoline. Told through photos. It is now a love story.
