I’ve spent many of the past 13 years of the winter holidays in Southern California, where my husband’s family lives. It’s always sunny, sometimes freezing, sometimes sweaty. It depends on what part of the large county that Los Angeles we are in. Being a large family, we travel far and wide to be with different families. Below are a few photos from the past before I get on a plane to spend another holiday with the family.
Santa Barbara, California. Jan 2014.
Downey, California. Jan 2014.
City Walk. Los Angeles, California. Dec 2009.
Los Angeles, California. Dec 2010.
Americana, Shopping Center. Los Angeles, California. Dec 2010.
Seduced by the sun’s appearance today, I took a bunch of pictures of tree shadows. I made this composite, which I would love to see blown up. I’ll work toward making that happen.
Part of this self-realization path I’m on is making it a habit to tune into the high vibes. If there is something I forgot to bring back with me when leaving the admin life to the artist life it’s that I had a really good routine. I’d get on the bus with my husband, we’d got coffee and chat for 15-20 minutes before trudging off to work, we’d part ways and I’d walk another 15 minutes with music blasting while I danced while stopped at crosswalks, or on the set of escalators that let me cheat the big hill I could’ve walked up. I took lunch between 12:00-12:30, I’d chow down at my haven of a lunch spot, watch an episode of something, and then dance back to work. The point is that the amount of walking I did everyday and the music I let course through my veins on a daily basis are things I haven’t done since I started working at home, and I forgot how important those actions were in tuning me into my high vibes. I enjoyed playing random play lists on Pandora or Songza and discovering new or even older music that PUMPED ME UP. My favorite are still Beyonce playlists. I wasn’t so into Destiny’s Child back in the day, but Beyonce is incredibly powerful in os many ways. Her expression, her art, her work ethic, her message. Everything. One song that I totally love I let play on repeat one day this past summer:
And as soon as I got out of work I popped my earphones in and ran down the hill to the bus stop with my arms held out like I was hugging the world! When I got home, I dropped by bag, grabbed my car keys, a book, my journal, and the hubby, and drove straight to the beach. I made him listen to the song with me on the sand, and I just danced in my own little world.
That beach break I was waiting for had arrived. 75 feels like 80.
Then, we chilled and enjoyed the sun for an hour. It was a good day. It was high vibes. And I haven’t totally felt that same way since, which hinders the the creative process more than a little.
Inching on the progress for this. I know I need to push this somehow. After a long day waiting to see if I’d be chosen for a jury (and not – phew!), I made a badass ratatouille, had it with a big glass of Cabernet, turned on some Castle, and made these small additions. Stay tuned!
For The Kitchen Table: To go with my feeling badass and taking charge of my path in life, I re-visited this image and added to it a photo of a thin tree I saw outside of an REI store. It’s as if my backbone is strengthening, and I’m gaining power just being who I am – unapologetically.
The body is is mine. It was for a photography class I took where we were asked to imitate a photographer’s work. I chose Lee Miller‘s Nude Bent Forward. She was a model for and collaborator with Man Ray, who went on to be a war photographer during World War II. From what I remember reading, She wanted to take the angel of on surrealism in a different way than Man Ray did (not just have naked bodies contorting and totally seeing that they were naked bodies contorting), I have to say, I respect Miss Miller’s idea on taking on this point of view.
There is something about taking charge of your life’s journey that challenges you to the point that you buy your own domain name. As I take the giant leap into owning my badassery, I had always thought of owning my own site that didn’t have a hosting site’s name attached to it.
I’ve had an online presence since I got my first e-mail address. I’ve posted jokes on a site I made on my University’s server, built my own site by coding in basic HTML so that I could post photos I’d taken and poetry I’d written, and joined the social media train, not able to resist sharing and connecting. I’m in so many places, it’s crazy. But I’ve never had a site that might encompass all that I am. So here I am!
I’m a little flummoxed, and need to spend some time charting out what the purpose of this blog will be, and what I want to highlight most (read: edit). So if you become a regular visitor, you’ll probably see it chameleon form for a while – ever changing.
Here’s to new beginnings and consolidating all I have to offer.
