As I close this Lightroom catalog and begin another, here are the last of those hard-to-classify-but-hard-to-shake images that build up in my stragglers folder. The beloved misfits. As always, your milage may vary.
I feel change in the air. A lot of it, of course, has to do with leaving Vital Foods. But some of it is deeper.
I grew up without much use for Winter. It’s an exhausting, psychologically grinding, cooped up marathon for me. Around the beginning of November, I start counting the days until the solstice, so I can begin enjoying longer ones again. That’s been changing the last few years. Lately I’ve been looking at Winter as a necessary force, a counterweight. A destination in the cycle.
Of course it goes deeper than destination. Winter is the season of stories. It’s a time of retreat and sleep and recharge. It’s a time when I can become chrysalis, un-form completely, surprise myself and everyone around me when Spring arrives. (Never mind that Spring always shows up drunk at three in the morning, with its super-pal Juniper, who gets the deepest joy from hazing me every year.)
This Winter, I plan to focus on the things that fulfill me creatively. That’s an immense privilege, and one that I don’t take lightly. I’ve given a lot of time over the last 10 years to an array of volunteer projects, and it’s time to step back from them, to focus on my own. On the table are: writing, experimenting with portrait lighting in my living room and food lighting on my kitchen table, taking classes and soul-searching on book binding, reading, and working with my beloved clients. I’m even considering booking a poetry tour this summer. I am so lucky I have these opportunities. I’ll also be thinking about how I can best leverage them to help others who aren’t so systematically empowered as I am.
Oh, and I made an Instagram account, finally.
So that’s it. Happy final days of 2015. And if you’re reading this in the great After, please don’t hesitate to call and let me know how it looks. I’ll be by my phone all week.