My Own Ramblings

For this week’s #soamweeklyphoto theme of #love my first thought, naturally, was of my children. But I wasn’t sure how to encompass all of that emotion and experience of these two small people who have so utterly changed me and capture it all in one meaningful photo.

I considered a screencap of me face-timing with my boy while I was on a break from my Spanish class, to say that I loved being able to make this awkward situation work for us thanks to technology. But I realized that what I was really trying to say is that I loved my life. I love how I’ve built it up from various piles of rubble over the years.

And I realized: that’s a new thing for me.

I struggle with depression. A childhood of abuse means that I probably always will. Five years ago I made the biggest decision of my life and the universe responded with an emphatic “LEVEL UP!”. By which I mean that I grew, made a choice, and then life got more difficult. I guess at a time like that one is supposed to rise to the occasion but if I am being honest, I chose to greet it with much grumbling and self-pity. And that’s okay. I had a lot of grief to deal with. Self-pity is necessary sometimes. But life has been unceasingly difficult since then and I am just so so tired and done.

Last semester wasn’t the darkest period of these five years for me, but it was close. My depression and anxiety were roaring, there was a lot of loss in my life, and an unusually busy school schedule with what approximated to 17 units (that was dumb). All I could do to get through it all was to put one foot in front of the other and expect nothing more from myself.

I can’t tell you what changed. A chance to recuperate over winter break surely helped. But something small cracked in my jaded armor I built during the turmoil of these last years and I was able to think positively.

For the first time in a long time, I decided to put my intentions into art. Sometimes I make vision boards at the new year. Usually collages arranged in a way that pleases me and means something to my intentions. This year I took an old, irrelevant one, and painted over it (the funky square bit is where something had been glued down). I wanted to allow it to speak for me so I simply chose two colors – shining gold, rising out of the darkness – and I allowed myself to let it decide what to be. It became a sun, a star, spinning amongst multi-colored stars out in the universe. I let it sit for awhile and eventually it became clear that it didn’t even want to become a collage. The idea was simple: my vision is to allow lightness back in.

I feel great and have for a record-breaking month and a half now (KNOCK WOOD. OKAY, UNIVERSE, YOU HEAR THAT? I AM KNOCKING WOOD). I am able to accomplish all my tasks during the day, phone calls and errands aren’t paralyzing, even my social anxiety is lessening and I can talk in classes again. I am constantly terrified that this will come to an end as mysteriously as it arrived, but I am reminding myself of my intention for this year: allow the light in. I remind myself that everything comes and goes. If another darkness descends, it will also dissipate.

The thing about clinical depression is that the words don’t always work. Sometimes I tell myself these things and I cannot hear them. Like auto-correct for my brain. But for now I am am loving my mental clarity, my children, and I love the life I have built for us.

A silhouette is our shadow, but with substance, with ourselves not removed. We can look at our outlines only, at those parts of ourselves which touch the reality that surrounds us. To photograph our silhouette is to focus on the lightness beyond which highlights our own darkness. This might sound like a big downer, but it’s really not. We have no lightness within us without our own darknesses. We must face our own darknesses to allow our lightness to shine on who we really are. And, often the darkness within us isn’t evil or bad, but simply quiet and sleepy. A silhouette allows us to focus on our lightness perhaps ironically while highlighting our darkness.

I loved the photos this week.

When I began thinking of my own, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I considered an old shot of me against the Winter Solstice sunrise, but I wanted to put intention into this week’s theme so I decided to purposely take a new one. And since I weigh rather more than I did when I took my favorite silhouette self-portraits, I decided I would make my new, larger body the subject of this piece of art I wanted to make.

Putting intention into art is like a prayer, or like magic. So I created a whole process for this piece so that I could really focus on this magic of making me into art. I set up a tripod, I created the lighting, I took the photos, and then I edited them together into one. Both of those are me. Where I started with intention, the art took over and completed the message: Me, dancing slightly out of sync with myself, but still in harmony. I tried to put this into words when I originally shared it on Instagram, but I had none at the time and decided to allow the photo to speak for me.

All selfies are art. Anything that you put out into the world, where you share your you-ness, is art. Snapping a quick pic in the carpool line at the elementary school is art. Snapping a makeup-free bedhead is art. All art is magic. But sometimes you need to take the moment to put a little more intention into your art. Make the magic a little stronger.

Thanks for participating, guys! This week’s theme is love.

I feel like selfies get a bad rap these days. When I was in college (the first time) and taking photography classes, I discovered Cindy Sherman and her whole thing was selfies, although not known by that name. It was her job to take selfies. Frida Kahlo is also widely respected for her selfies. And, of course, these are probably referred to by the more serious name of “Self portrait” but what, really, is the difference?

Nearly a decade ago now I became a part of an online group whose intent was to create self-portraits on a regular basis. Some were silly, some were very clearly serious art, many were somewhere in between those two, and a few were really just the online equivalent of a wave to a group of friends. The group continued on for seven years and I made some of my best friends through my computer this way, but perhaps the most important thing for me was how much I learned about myself.

Too often we hide from the camera. My mom did, especially. She loathed having to see herself in photographs. I made a silent promise to myself that I would never hide from the camera, if for nothing else than for the sake of my kids. We have photos of all of us having fun. Someday they can sit and look through photos and see me and how young I was and they can remember all the good times, I hope.

But to purposefully turn the camera on oneself on a regular basis is a life-changing thing. I learned to see myself in all sorts of new ways. I learned that I could be pretty even when I wasn’t feeling pretty. I learned that I could also be not-pretty and that was really totally okay. I examined aspects of my physical body and aspects of my psyche. I took selfies to express something inside me, or I took selfies just to share an inane moment. Sometimes people on Facebook talk shit about seeing too many selfies, but I love seeing the faces of my friends when I cannot see them in person.

I think that a lot of the selfie-hate out there is misogynistic, really. After all, women are supposed to be pretty all the time, but they aren’t supposed to KNOW it. If we don’t look perfect, we are lazy and slobby. If we spend to much time in front of a mirror perfecting our look, we are vain. It’s another in a long line of catch-22’s we have to wade through as women. I’m so done with all that bullshit. Hell yeah, I embrace selfies!

So when I designed this new weekly photo project I tried to choose themes that were thought-provoking and body-positive. I also tried to pick themes that could be universal and not specific to just moms who have given birth. The themes I chose don’t have to be taken right now, and they don’t even have to be self-portraits (although you must have permission to post the photo, of course, because of copyright laws), but I think it can be a really powerful movement if you choose to participate. (You can see the themes for the whole year here.)

Besides, I loved seeing all of your faces last week!

This week’s theme is “scars”. I can’t believe that I’m about to quote Papa Roach, but there’s a line in a song that says “our scars remind us that the past is real” and I find that so relevant. We are told to erase or hide our scars, but they are the words of our stories written into our skin and we should never hide our stories. Show us your stories this week. If you didn’t participate last week, no worries at all. Just jump in any time!