The Less I Know

3:30

When you get something you've wanted for a very long time does it lose the mystique? Or does it make you feel as if you had cheated yourself previously without even realizing it? When awareness does come, do you feel like you see everything differently, even something as simple as the sunlight in your kitchen? Or the different colors in your own eyes? Or the way your children smile sincerely after they laugh; unguarded and true?

I draw with words, scribble lines with language, smudge and blur meanings with adjectives, the secret inspirations hidden beside semicolons; the words after them are always the most honest. Now, with new camera in hand, I realize the more I receive the less I know. The stories in me are more than words; they are the integral parts of me. The photos I am learning to create are more than captured moments; they are my life broken down into readable files. This playing at focus and light and patience, has set me on a journey I hadn't been aware of before; I'll bring you with me wherever I go to see whatever I see. Last year I wrote in this space about change. This year year let's write of discovery.

6:19

A photograph is a secret about a secret.
The more it tells you the less you know.
Diane Arbus

Sunshine

Spring has arrived and we are soaking up the sun while we can before April brings rain and the threat of tornadic weather. I really despise the word tornadic. I doubt it is even a real word. A weatherman in St. Louis used to say it and things like, "good times". I am convinced he never wore pants behind the anchor desk.

Anyway, this girl, my hot weather baby, my golden-tressed princess, she is my sunshine. I remember my OB looking at her and shaking his head while commenting his wife would spend everything to have hair this color. I wonder if it will stay this color as she grows up. I wonder many things about my children's future selves. Will they be happy? I hope so. There are so many variables, ten thousand things that have to go right in a person's life to outweigh the ten thousand that weren't quite right. My wish is I am able to be a part of many of those joys and to be a comfort through many of those sorrows.

Note to my future self: Remember these days? These were the days you realized your heart had more rooms in it than you ever imagined. Promise me they are still occupied and the doors have never been locked. Tell me about your ten thousand joys.

High Point

This is one of the high points of my foothill, the distant ridge is the next city over. When I stand here I can see clearly for miles in every direction, even as far as the peaks of Red Mountain thirty miles away. This is my thinking spot, covered in waist-high dry grass this time of year, reminiscent of an Andrew Wyeth painting. I love how even at such heights, the perspective is flat, as if I could simply step from my ridge to the next, the immeasurable chasm in between only a sketched line in the sky like a crack in the pavement.

Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky. Rilke

The Mysterious Lamp Post

My father pulled in the drive with a surprise- my old armoire. My childhood bedroom was in the attic, a heavily dormered room with no closets that was freezing in the winter and an inferno in summer. Like so many things remembered, I would have sworn the wardrobe was larger; in my memory, it loomed and beckoned. I spent many hours tucked inside hidden amongst my clothes and dolls dreaming of the could be's and the what if's and the when I grow up's.

I couldn't help but venture back in, not expecting to find anything other than dust, but some spaces never lose their magic. Though I had to duck my head this time, I found what I was looking for; the mysterious lamp post in the middle of a dark and snowy wood. I drew a picture of it for you, in case you are too old and cynical to see such things for themselves anymore.

Not In My Bag

To my best travel companion,

Happy Birthday, Michael, and bon voyage. I wish I could have come with you. I will stand on the top of the ruins waiting for your return. Travel well, brother.
Yours,
Heather

And that's the wonderful thing about family travel: it provides you with experiences that will remain locked forever in the scar tissue of your mind. -Dave Barry

Restless Scissors

In our house, funny things happen. Fairy doors magically appear on bedroom walls in the middle of the night with pennies and pastels left on the doorsteps for a special little girl. And sometimes, when all is hushed and sleeping, I can hear the scissors and the paper turning restlessly in their cabinet, wondering if we've forgotten them. So during a sick day when my daughter asks "can we use the camera?" Of course I say yes.

After many deliberations and arguments and freaking out at a little brother who wanted to stick his hand in every shot, and tears all around, we accomplished her vision. And in the end, she was happy and so was I and little brother was secretly happy too because he deemed it "stupid", which is his highest compliment for an idea not his own. Oh, and the scissors and paper? They were happy too and slept soundly all the night through.

Holy Selbuvotter!

Confession:

I have a guilty pleasure. Runway fashion. Ever since I was in middle school and flipped through my first Elle, which then was chock full of glamazon supermodels with neon eye shadow and fierce attitudes, I've kept a (secret) eye on what the designers send down the runway each season. Now, I can hear Nicole laughing at me as I type this; she refers to my sense of style as my 'uniform' because when I fall in love with a garment or look, I wear it until it falls apart. Security clothes, I guess.

So, despite my personal failure to be currently trendy, I do appreciate the outrageous art/fashion the seasons bring. Imagine my delight when I saw what Dolce & Gabbana have up their (knitted) sleeves for Winter 2011... selbu galore, sheer fabric with traditional Nordic prints, and (gasp!) my uber-crush, Travis. He had me at hello with this Chanel commercial last year (my god, those lips...). My husband just cringed, I can sense it.

I want to knit the cowl he's wearing and possibly the red dress too, but first, I should finish the three projects I've got on the needles.

What's your secret indulgence?

The World is Quiet Here

...shhh. Both my babies are home sick. Plans out the window, blankets piled on, and a hardwood floor that is mocking me with its dirtiness. Why is it a sick day for a child means a work day turned to a play day, but exactly the opposite is true for a parent?

I had planned to make magnusmog and Frances happy with another Henry Rollins quote today, and even though my son's middle name is Henry, I don't think it would fit the mood here. So, while I kiss his tiny knuckles and smooth down my daughter's hair until this feeling bad has left them, I'll leave you with this:

“Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind.

"Pooh," he whispered.
"Yes, Piglet?"
"Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw,

"I just wanted to be sure of you."”