My Thoughts on Sharing

I tend to hate sharing my feeling with people. I tend to not reach out to people in times of need.... It tends to make me very uncomfortable when I share something that's...shitty but normal(honestly)for me, that's been going on. I don't like hearing that there sorry for me. I don't like to knowing that I made them feel that way.

Here's why. I believe with every convo and every interaction we have with others we leave a piece of ourselves with them and visa versa. You know that feeling you get when your telling a friend about your bad day? It's like laying down after being on your feet all day. It's like placing very heavy bags down after carrying them for blocks. I don't like placing that onto people. Now don't get me wrong I am a listener. I love people talking to me about there problems and there solutions. Because I know talking helps. But I also know that I worry about them and I also know how that feeling of wanting to help but being helpless feels like, and I don't feel comfortable being that burden on others.

But I'm coming to realize that some people are strong enough to handle it. Some people will. And you CAN'T keep it in. You have to get it out. You have to share it.

A Note About Writing

I've never felt like I was a writer. I'm a reader and by default I think that makes me a fair writer. I think I have a distinct voice and style. Like every writer I have things that I want to get better at. I have a bad habit of reading what I think is there instead of what's actually there. I can be a horrendous speller, and I've never mastered the whole there vs. their battle. More then once, I've been re-reading a old an old post of mine and have found an error. The last thing(I'm sure I'll find more things later) I want to fix is recently I'm finding my writing to be thin.

So moving forward I'm going to try and attack these problems two ways: first I'm going to write something everyday. second I'm going to start reading slower. I'm a speed reader, always have been...I like to get to the endings as quickly as possible. thirdly I'm going to crack open one of my old college English books. I'm sure I have one that specifically talks about grammar.

If anyone else has any ideas on what I can do to become a better writer leave them in the comments below.

A la Prochaine!

New Project: Finding Home

"Home is a feeling, not a place."

 

    Have you ever met a world traveler? Someone whose travelled there whole life? Someone who feels like the road is home? Did you ever notice that they never seem out of place? How they seem to be able to set up camp anywhere, and be perfectly settled and at home.

 

   Do you know anyone who lives on there bare necessities/ How many times have you thought they where crazy? Or that maybe its okay for them, but you could never do it? Have you ever noticed how much happier they seem from everyone else you know....from you?

 

I've never felt that safe feeling that comes with being at home. Most times I'll be at out and counting the minutes until I can get home. But once I get there all I want to do is run back out the door. I can never figure out why I wanted to be in this place, or why it's called home. It could actually be anywhere. It's like...I'm always tittering on the edge of belonging.

 

"Home is a feeling, not a place."

 

This is my quest to find that feeling called home.

Words to Live By

"If you don't build your dream, someone will hire you to build theirs"

Every time I'm thinking about giving up because it seems so hard. Every time I think I'm to tired, too un-skilled...etc etc etc. I think of these words, and they always put things into perspective for me.

L'atelier de la Petite Dame(The Little Lady Workshop)

At the beginning of the summer I started playing with the idea of starting a jewelry business. It soon became clear to me that this was something that I really wanted to do. I started working on creating different designs and set a date for when I would launch the website.

The main goal I had in seeing my dream come to fruition was getting the website up. But unlike my previous projects I didn't do any press related stuff. I felt like if I just got the website up success would just come. I was wrong. Unfortunately I had to take the website down after only one month. I have the tendency to start a project and boast about it, then not finish what I started. I think apart of my not doing any press/marketing stuff was that if I didn't succeed I didn't want anyone to know.

What's very important for me to say here is that I don't consider this a failure. Its a lesson that I had to learn, and I'm glad I learned it early on. Really I had no clue what I should have been doing(beside the stuff that I could have, but wasn't doing...) I had no idea how much of my time and money had to go into this for it to truly be successful. Success in this instances to me means having this business sustain itself and one day help me in quiting one of my many jobs(lol)!

I'm much more  aware now! For more daily updates about L'atelier head on over to the Facebook page.

The End Never Seemed so Far Away

Well...I'm almost done.

I'm almost finished with the application process for art school. I still have to write an artist statement and photograph the pieces for portfolio. Then I just have to wait and see. If I get in, great I go to school. If I don't then I will pick my bruised ass up and proceed to plan B(note to self: dearest self, please, please, please make a plan B).

I'm almost done but for some reason I don't feel like relief from all the pressure I'm under is coming any time soon. If anything I know feel more pressured. I want so many things for myself and everyday that I don't do something extraordinay I feel is a waste. Honestly I can't name one thing that I'm doing daily that I would label as extraodinary. The things I'm doing(ie: my job, working towards getting back in school) are things I think I should be doing, but they don't make me happy.

But with so many people living there dream, right in front of me,  I can't fool myself into thinking that I can't do the same thing anymore. I just have to find away to do it....

A la prochaine!

Yes Yes, I know I said I quit!

What I really should have said was I was quitting any influence from people about the way I create and express my self. Let me make my self clear. Just because I've dusted my camera off doesn't mean I'm going to whip it out at your request and take photo's for you.

If you know me at all you know why photography means so much to me, and why I can't quit it. The idea of photography was implanted in my head in HS when I was battling a very dark period in my life. I had spent a year homeless, lost quite a bit of friends and spent a year in bed making it impossible to graduate with my class. I was allowed to take photography and it was a great experience. It wasn't a very long class, and it had too many students but the idea that I could create something, that I could capture the moments and people that meant the most to me was planted. After HS I started taking on photo jobs. Mostly events, but some fashion work too. None of it felt right, but I kept doing it because people wanted me too. This past summer I had enough and I told anyone that was listening that "I Quite". Honestly I had no desire to be behind or in front of a camera.

A couple of random things happened recently. One of my friends went online and saw some of my work and sent me an email saying they where awesome. I then went online and looked at the portrait work I liked doing and realized that they were good and that I had grew from the time I started. I also realized that no one should be able to make me quite something that I enjoy doing. I need to get a better at saying no and meaning it. It's okay to be a little selfish sometime.

Baby I'm back!

What do you call your self?

"A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity.." -Rilke

I don't call myself a writer or a poet. Sometimes though the need to write hits me in the dead of the night, right before I'm about to fall asleep. At those times I get up turn on the lights and write don't the words in my head. Afterwards, with out reading what I just put down on paper, I fall in bed happy that I listened to the words my heart was shouting at me.

One day I'm going to compile all this mini stories from my heart into a book.

p.s. I'm reading one letter from Letters To A Young Poet a day

Books I must own...soon!

If I wasn't capable of reading a book a day I would be confident that that tiny list of seven books would last me through out the whole summer. As it is I've already finish two books, (in two days), and I'm going to start reading Black Girl in Paris tomorrow.

I was thinking about books I've read in the past and loved, but can't remember now. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou was one of those books. I read it in HS, and can remember nothing about it expect that I liked it. Last semester I read an essay from Sherman Alexie and fell in love with this author. Now I must have The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. When I was in JHS I read four books by Mildred D. Taylor They were wonderful but I forgot the names as soon as I finish them. I came across one of them at the $1 table at strand a while back and now I must own all four stories.

1. Song of the Trees
2. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (I own this one)
3. Let the Circle Be Unbroken
4. The Road to Memphis

Hopefully I'll be able to get these books soon. If I don't though there's a summary to The Road to Memphis on Wikipedia. =/

Until next time.

Poverty looks like this...

A man approached me in the street one day and asked me for some change..I told him I had nothing to give. It was the truth. He took one second to look at me from head to toe and the silently walk away.

I know what he saw when he looked at me, but I wish I could have told him that my dress was on sale and my pearl and sterling silver necklace was a fake. I wish I could have told him that my mother sits through services at churches to "shop" in there pantries. I wish I could have told him that every year that I fill out financial aid forms just to have to fill out some more forms to "verify" all the shit I just said. All because my school doesn't understand how my family lives off such little money. "There's no way", they say. It's amazing how much prayer can fill an empty stomach, I always think to my self.

I wish I could have told him that he wasn't alone. I wish I could have told him that poverty sometimes looks like this. Sometimes it looks like me...

But he was probably a drunk so I didn't bother. Besides this is America, you don't share that kind of shit with strangers.

Inspiration

This was read to me after the end of a great work out at Yoga to The People.

This really hit home. I've been searching for alot of answers that I can't see to figure out.

When I can't figure something out it's like I come to a complete stop.

I obsess over the question(s) and the answer(s). Which ofcoure stops me from actually living and experiencing life it self...

from "Letters to a Young Poet"
by Rainer Maria Rilke


I want to beg of you much as I can to be patient
toward all that's unsolved in your heart,
and learn to love the questions themselves,
like locked rooms, or like books that are
written in a very foreign tongue.

Do not seek the answers, which cannot be given you,
because you would not be able to live them,
and the point is to live everything.

Live the question now,
perhaps you will then, gradually, without noticing it,
live along some distant day into the answer.

Imaginary Picnic

I want to make a video of some kind this summer!

A Change is Gonna Come

Hello Friends,

I have been very busy with school, but mostly I've been trying to listen to the little voice in my head. I'm not a very happy girl right now. Here's whats been going on. I dropped my photo 1 class. Not because I don't need the skills that were being taught, not because I didn't like the teacher, but because I didn't like the class. I didn't like that every week I HAD to go out and do some assignment, and I HAD to do it a certain way.

I've also been feeling like when it comes to my photographic skills(or lack thereof), I've been taken advantage of. Its good to have experience, its good to work hard to create a name for yourself. It sucks when your asked to do work that you don't believe in. For FREE. No one has ever asked me what I like to photography. It's always, "Oh, you like taking picture? Come and do this for me, and I'll give you 'credit'." Everybody whats me to do them a favors, but nobody whats to pay me for it, that's the kind of "credit" I want! The way this economy is going I CAN'T afford to do anything for free.

Then there are the people that say they are going to pay you, and give me credit. The problem arises when I've helped them better themselves and am now sitting with my palms stretched out waiting for them to feel its the right time to give me what's owed, what I've worked for. I'm tired of that. I won't play the ignoramus any more.

A change has come. I no longer feel the need to prove my skills to anyone. I no longer feel the need to be called a photographer. This summer I will NOT be doing anything for photographic wise for anyone. When I started doing photography I did it for me. Now its time to get back to that!!

Lightworks

Played with the "bulb" shutter on my camera.

"Light up the sky, the name of the game is lightworks..."

A Note to Our Teachers

Last night I remembered a question someone had asked me. "Did you keep a journal when you were younger?", I said "yes, but I didn't write in it much." She said "OK" and that was it.

Last night I remembered this, and thought of a the real reason why I didn't write in that journal. Mostly it was because of embarrassment. Though no one would see what I wrote unless I showed them, I always felt a little stupid when I was writing, or would re-read my entries. I felt like I didn't have enough words to describe how I was feeling. I wasn't really shocked when I came to this realization. I am a slow learner. That's something I've come to be alright with. I do learn, I do have those "ah ha" moments when every things clear, it just takes me a minute longer to reach these points.

When I was younger no one ever took an interest into what made me think about things. I felt my teachers didn't take enough interest into figuring out how I learned. Sometimes I felt they didn't really care if I learned or not.

I think that when you teach something you should follow though to make absolutely sure that every single one of your students understands. A child might be extra quiet because she doesn't understand. Or a child may act out when he feels he is being left behind. You can bet money that we feel it when were left behind. It's in the air. There's this buzzing excitement that comes with learning. A feeling of accomplishment when you know that you can learn.

It was a very liberating experience when I learned how I learned. I was speaking to a friend and I told her, "I learn differently, and that's OK." Before that point I was terrified of school(at this point I was in my 1st years of college), and I wouldn't take chances in my writing because I didn't no how.

So Thank You to the few teachers, and counselors, and friends that took(and continue to) an interest, it made a difference!!

Lesson Learned

"When people show you there true colors, believe them."

People like nice people.
People take advantage of nice people.
You can't be mad at any but yourself when someone takes advantage of your kindness. I think the quote is by Maya Angelou.

Christmas?...not so much

I tend to have the Christmas 'spirit" when Christmas is no where in site. I think the feelings are more authentic then! =)

Sit awhile, breathe....

blueberry, peppermint, and ginger tea in a blue cup.

Zenzele

I hung out with this little chica yesterday. I babysat her for 2 years. Her and her mama are the reason I went to college right after high school. Photographing her at the park near my house and seeing other little kids that i would love to photograph made me think that kid photography might be my niche. This was one of my funnest shoots!

more images from the day HERE.

Seize the Day

"Did you do something today, that put you closer to where you want to be?"

I have this quote written on a post-it and stuck on the wall in front of me. Anytime my eyes wander from what they should be focused on they land on it. I read it at least once a day, it makes me feel good when I can say yes. If you just keep pushing forward, keep putting one foot in front of the other, you'll be OK. I'm a firm believer in the saying "slow and steady wins the race"

Today I got a job after being unemployed and since May. I was worried about how I was going to help pay the bills and how I was going to stay in school. Its temporary but its a step forward!