One of the great things about becoming a mom is that it's suddenly as easy to go to the park and make friends as it was when I was a kid (almost). That's how I met Tamara and I'm so glad I did. She's a passionate writer, photographer, and observer of life. Visit her blog to read more!
Love has always inspired me. That sounds really nice, right? It isn't always.
For as long as I can remember, I have expressed myself through writing. For nearly that long, but off by a few years, I have also expressed myself through photography. I've always been a visual person, and I was born into a visual family. My grandfather's artwork has been featured in books and even on Rosie O'Donnell once. My mother's illustrations are scary-good. My sister inherited the talent for illustrating as well. I did not. I have no doubts that I could have but my focus and interest were not there. I spent my life framing images in my mind and it wasn't until my parents put my first camera in my hands that I learned that I could transfer my framed images into physical objects. It was euphoric to discover this. It still is, every time.
Photography comes easily for me. Like a magician's rabbit, I can pull it out of a hat anywhere, anytime, any place. Writing does not come easily for me. I pull it out from the darkest reaches of my being and it hurts even before I start. It hurts on its way out and doesn't stop until it's finished. Printed. Published. Blogged. Written in a letter. The cycle doesn't stop.
I've always considered myself lucky to be both a writer and a photographer. The photography keeps me sane and artistic when the writing cannot. The photography gives me something to write about. Sometimes I do both well. Sometimes I do neither well. I have spent my life going through artistic deluges and artistic droughts. It's not usually middle of the road.
My personal life has always been a factor.
It's love that has always fueled the fire of some of my best work as a writer. As a child, it was the loss of love, and the never-ending search for that love lost that I explored heavily in my early writings. Even in 5th grade, my English teacher said, "Wow. This is heavy but I get it. Your writing is so sad and you're not. Your writing is so sad so that you don't have to be." She was right. I lost my father at an early age and I think that pain as well as my born ability to feel intense joy made me a writer. I had too many feelings to contain, so they spilled out onto paper. As I got older, I discovered a new kind of love to write about and for - romantic love. In my teens and 20's, I was inspired by love, passion, lust, romance. I am embarrassed to count how many times I used my writing, or even photography, to impress a boy or get him to stay. Love and lust inspired me to write poems at 3:00 am, even though I'd never and haven't since had any interest in poetry. Seven page love letters to get a boy back? Done. Flirty emails to a off-limits boss? Done. Hand-written letters to boys overseas? Done.
It was wonderful, open, wild and free, but it couldn't last. I met someone to marry and though we did fall in love over email, we eventually moved in together and no longer wrote emails to each other all day anymore. It would have been weird. Expressing love in person was both rewarding and awesome, but I could no longer hide behind my writing. I was out in the great wide open. I was also far away from home. I was anxious and sad. My writing became stale and blocked. Eventually I gave it up. I was given a new camera but I kept it in the box and gave up photography too. I was living life without my art.
Until the day, years later, that I fell into a different kind of love. The love for a child. My child.
I have always loved Billy Joel's "Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)" but I could never have conceived of creating something so brilliant until I had my daughter, Scarlet, and felt exactly the way the voice in that song feels. After she was born, I took my camera out of hiding. It was still new and unused, although a bit neglected, in its original packaging. The steps were slow and tentative. I didn't know how to use my camera. I didn't know anything about lenses, shooting RAW, shooting manually, shooting WITHOUT flash. I had never used a digital camera. I was used to umbrella lighting and medium format film cameras. I had professional training, sure, but it couldn't take me into the future ten years later. So I spent over two years learning.
After several months with lots of photos to post and lots of conflicting postpartum emotions to process, I started my blog. The steps were tentative and slow. I was rustier than my dusty old camera. I was trying to get my voice back and intense life changes, both dreadful and amazing, were happening all around me. My blog grew up as I did. The photography grew up too. It's a work in progress and I would like to believe it'll keep growing. I'm no longer afraid that the artistic inspiration will just go away again. I believe I have gained stronger tools for nourishing my art and taking space from it when needed.
It's not as easy as I make it sound, but it has been consistent for two years. I'm sure there will be droughts, and there will be deluges, but Scarlet's birth gave me back something I thought I had lost - my inspiration. And now it feels more solid. More secure. The love for her is lasting. I will surely beat my head against my desk many times over in writer's block frustration. I may spend days, weeks, months, but hopefully not years, not producing what I know I'm capable of producing.
It's not guaranteed, of course. It's the never-ending cycle and chase. I chase my inspiration and it chases me back, when I'm lucky. While motherhood helped it out of its dormancy, I work hard every day to keep it flowing. I always will.
As I am writing this, my daughter keeps taking my hand from the keyboard and slamming my keyboard shelf away from me. And still I type, oblivious to the sounds of her screeches and her hands tearing mine away from what I was born to do.
Eventually, I stop. I play with her for a half hour and then she goes to bed and I am free to write. It's a strange balancing act - all of my photography is done when she is awake and most (should be all) of my writing is done while she's asleep.
But the course of my life always gets photographed. It always gets written. Every single time.
