Pic of the Week: This Too Shall Pass

I'm not going to lie...life changes have got me a bit down right now. Sometimes, it's really hard to cope with change. As much as I love it and I look forward to it, it is exhausting and can be overwhelming.

I feel like writing a poem. I know my poems aren't the best. I rarely take the time to sit down and actually work on one. They come out of my brain sporadically and very rarely do I develop them. Actually, that can transfer to all of my writing endeavors, including these blog posts. I definitely would like to be more disciplined in my writing but today is not the day I will start it.

Instead, I will leave you with this poem, spat out as we speak.

I've got these fragments

That float in my mind;

Parts of wholes that I can't describe.

I see them in the middle, or maybe it's the end;

Words and phrases I've yet to comprehend.

Eyes closed,

I try to see.

But they are gone,

Mere wisps of a scene.

Heart numb.

Mind dumb.

Next time, it will be best to let them be.

Whoa

I have two free hours of time right now. What am I going to do with it?

I've been exploring the idea of controlling time -- mostly I've been trying to figure out how to slow it down so I can actually do everything I want to do and everything I need to do. One trick I've found is to make what I want and what I need be the same. It's more efficient.

However, it takes practice and it takes discipline. You also have to spend time thinking about what your time is worth, what time means to you, how time makes you feel, etc. I used to really get anxious about time. If I had to do something important that put pressure on me, I used to get terribly nervous and anxious. I realized though, that those feelings of anxiety and nervousness were the same physical feelings of excitement -- I just needed to change my mental label of the feeling.

It's helped tremendously.

In regards to time, it's helped me realize that the super important event that was coming would simply come and then go and it should be looked at no differently than any other typical/non-emotional event in my life. It would have a beginning, middle and then an end and I would be placed back into the life that I had been in before. What was the big deal? Why was this event causing me to be anxious? No reason. It was just in my head.

I've started to use my camera as a form of meditation. I'm taking film this semester and the art is all about the relationship of time and light. It's making me slow down and think. I highly suggest shooting in film and spending time in the darkroom. It keeps your mind calm.

I took this picture of the moon earlier this month. I used a telescope lens from my film camera and held it to my Canon. It did a pretty good job. I took it out in front of Mackie's house in Dublin, Texas. We all went camping out on her land. It was such a good experience. I'll be posting a few pictures from that sometime soon.

It's important to spend energy processing what happens in your life. Not only do you have to recognize and understand your own feelings, but it's important to be aware of how your actions affect other people. Photography is all about perspective. It's all about finding different perspectives and exploring ideas and feelings and intuition. For me, that's the most enjoyable part of the art.

Now, it's time to focus. =)