Holiday Event Pictures

This message is inspired by my last Facebook post in which I showed this picture of Jack & me which I was really happy with, except for the placement of my arms.

Alot of people were very sweet about loving the photo, and I totally love it too.

Alot of people thought I was crazy and that nothing was wrong with it.

One of my very oldest friends encouraging said I often look good in my FB pictures to which I replied that it was all a carefully constructed ruse; Because 98% of photos that are taken of me or that I take of me are not awesome. Sometimes this is nitpicking and doesn't take away form my enjoyment of the photo and the moment it represents. Sometimes people actually wouldn't recognize me because the bad photo doesn't look anything like the photos I allow on FB and hopefully doesn't look like the real me either. Look, I'm not saying that I only accept beautiful photos as memories I'm willing to keep. But, as a photographer and someone who loves photos and someone who yearns to be able to capture the beauty of love and real life in a beautiful photo, learning how to represent myself in a manner pleasing to me DURING a beautiful moment so that a camera can cement it is important.

For a lot of you, pictures are just plain a pain in the butt. In a lot of ways, the artifice of getting a good photo ruins the result for you.

For a lot of you, love IS beauty and therefore bandying around with whether the representation meets with ridiculous beauty standards is immaterial.

These tips are not not for you people ;). I validate and appreciate that you exist and that you are there to remind us that life is more important than the representation of it. BUT for those of you heading into the holidays, sick of feeling beautiful in the moment only to either have NO pictures to commemorate it or pictures that make you wonder which mirror you were looking in that you felt beautiful in the first place. These tips are for you. So...

Getting the picture you want of yourself in TWO steps:

Lean In Physically: The camera does actually lie and can actually be tricked. Even if you don't know what sort of lens you're being shot by (hint: camera phones are wide angle), leaning yourself toward the camera as naturally as you can is probably a good idea. Whatever is closest to the camera is biggest, so leaning away not can create a double chin problem, but also leaves your hips out in the front by a few important inches.

Lean In Emotionally: If you want to take a great picture, you have to let go of the facade that you don't care what you look like or if you get a great picture. You have to put some emotion, some spirit into your face/ body language. You have to be ok with people knowing that you tried to get a good picture. And that can be very uncomfortable.

In the photo below (taken by Tim Scheidler). It was Christmas Eve 2010and I was in the stage of life that I hated my hair down unless styled. The only pictures of myself from the last several holidays had not been what I wanted them to be. So I swallowed my pride, grabbed poor Steve Scheidler as my prop, handed my brother-in-law the camera and asked to just please take a bunch to see if any worked out. I knew I needed to lean and look the way I wanted in order for the camera to capture it (despite my feeling like there would never be another good picture of me again and if the camera was actually representing what i look like walking around then I needed an intervention). Steve was thinking I was crazy, so he was joking around and messing with me. But I wanted a good picture, so, rather than pull away and give him an eye roll and a "you're such a dork" face, I put the expression on my face I wanted to portray (i.e. I really really love this dork), leaned in and boom. Out of the 20-30 snaps I awkwardly posed thru, this was the ONLY one that I didn't look really really lame and too desperate in. It was a moment.

And a turning point for me. Kinda like that first time you bother to study and you actually know all the answers on the tests. From then on it seemed POSSIBLE; not always easy, but POSSIBLE.

Don't Tell Me I Don't Experience Life

No matter how many people insist that taking pictures is not experiencing life or that taking pictures takes away from experiencing life; the regrets in my life are not NOT doing things - they are doing things and having no pictures to commemorate it.

Look, I get the idea of what people are trying to say. There are some sacred moments out there where you simply can't move fast enough to get a recording device ready or the situation is too somber to try. But just because I know it's not appropriate to take a picture doesn't mean I don't regret that there was a failure to record an important or precious moment.

Let me use another word - I MOURN the loss of these moments. Because if I was supposed to be keeping them safe in my heart? Then they are gone. Absorbed maybe into my heart (yay for me!) but available for recall? No.

I will even go a step forward and take utter responsibility for the reason people say this to me. Because they can see the anxiety on my face when a wonderful thing is happening and there is no chance to record it. They interpret that as stress and as not simply embracing the moment as it happens.

But, I promise you, that's not how I see it. I see something beautiful or joyous or precious happen and I know that I will not remember it. Fine, here I am experiencing it. Great. Check. My heart swells, my soul sings, my flesh breaks out in bumps. But guess what is not going to happen? Me recalling it. I remember the trying to remember things more than I remember the things I wanted to try to remember.

I think maybe other people have better memory recall than I do? Because of all those moments where my only option is to try to savor reality; experience an experience, I remember... two of them? Clearly? No, not really. And I lose them by the moment, like shedding skin cells: I don't even know I'm losing them - I don't even know they are gone.UNTIL...I have some recorded moment that brings me back; that makes me draw my eyebrows together and my brain creak as I try to access those wispy ghosts of things I really really wanted to remember.

I can only assume it's normal that I have more clear memories from before kids than after. I remember vividly the first moments of Steve and my relationship. I remember how he held my hand BEFORE we were even slightly dating while we were in a circle of friends. I think my arm sort of went numb as I tried to play it off like no big deal. I remember doodling on a piece of paper as we discussed details for our first date. I remember he held my hand the whole way driving me home after our first date even though I think two of his fingers were jammed from playing basketball. I remember when he grinned at me delighted because I kissed his cheek for no reason while he was trying to find a place to park in our second week of dating (went to Sampo gig I think?) and I was wearing June's weird fabric button up shirt. But move onto my life with kids? Geez, I have a few imprinted moments from all of them, but I've lost SO MUCH of Abby. We didn't do video as much - no iphones - back then, but thankfully, I have a few. So yes, I'm thankful, and yet, also - seeing what I do have makes me realize how much I've lost because it doesn't seem real... Did I really know her at that age with all her adorable voiced glory? OH MY GOSH SHE WAS SO CUTE!!! She spoke - full chatter really young. I had to develop a practice of answering most of her chatter with "What do you think?" just so I didn't go wildly insane.

Yes, that is one of those indelible non-recorded experiences I have retained: me looking in the rear view mirror at a 4 year old Abby asking questions of every sort and wanting to engage and me not having the brain power to engage and turning it back on her. That sounds super negative but it wasn't. She didn't want real scientific answers to her questions, she just wanted to talk and engage and me getting her to expand more on what she was thinking actually made her way happier than trying to actually answer all her questions with answers that just gave her more questions that I didn't have the answers for. Do I remember her face or her voice or what questions she was asking from that moment? Not as much as I'd like. Mostly I just remember MY face and how I felt. What a jip!

It's just that, as I age, the flighplan of life is starting to get obvious. I don't care if my 5 times great grandchild wants to know what I was thinking and feeling and so they find my blog (But let me tell you, if they are anything like me, they totally would find it and care). I want my memories: my treasures on earth. I don't need to elevate them to golden calf status, but I want them accessible.

Would I DIE if all my records burned up? No... But I would be sad. Also, guess what? I would remember less things. GUARANTEED. That's a jerky thing to ask anyway... why hassle me about this? Why hassle anyone about this?

Okay, maybe I can answer that. I've seen people who hijack a sacred moment by interfering and inserting themselves and their camera and their commentary and their self doubt and their criticism of your face in their effort to do exactly what I am saying I want. Only it's not EXACT. They want a moment that says something about them... or you (my kid is prettier or more successful than your kid). I don't want the moment so that I can share it. I want the moment so that I can KEEP it dammit.

Oh, I can't make time stop; trust me, I don't want to! I don't want eternal babies. It's not about stopping time or trying to make things how they used to be. It's about acknowledging that all parts of life are important, even if they are fleeting. For a good number of years, a child is not going to remember the love we poured into them, the sacrificed movies, the 8 millionth time we cleaned the living room so that their friends weren't scared to come over ;). But with photos, videos, audiofiles, etc. I am giving honor to that time. Does my child need me to? No. Am I looking for credit? No. I just want to know that it matters that it happened. I want to remember why it was worth it even at the time. It wasn't worth it JUST because my children are going to grow up with that core of love and support - it was worth it because it was my WORK, it was my LIFE. All these transitory things that took up large chunks of energy and love - they mattered because I matter and therefore what makes up my life matters, even if only to myself.

I value my life and the people in it, and I like to look back and see the journey I've been on. Sometimes, this act in itself is an experience. The act of touching a picture I took such care to frame up or holding snapshot I once treasured can be meaningful all in itself. To see an older picture with a better understanding of what was happening, or what it was like to be in that moment - it can heal and it can hurt. Neither of which are unimportant.

I don't see how this all varies SO much from how others think valuable moments should be experienced.

Reflection - there are a lot of inspirational quotes about it which I don't want to share here because I don't want to put the effort into researching if it was actually said by who it is attributed to.  

Think about this.  It is so much easier to manufacture how a moment should have been; distorting it to how we wish it had been without a record to prove us wrong.  And sometimes, we need to be proven wrong to realize we haven't gotten nearly far enough ahead of where we once were or to realize we are not giving ourselves enough credit for how far we've come.  

Abandoned and Unloved

So, for years and years I've been scared to die and leave my adored children - especially young enough to get confused and feel abandoned.  

This, even though I have total faith that God and our very warm extended family would take care of them for me;  This, even though I am also very sure of the strength of the kids' hearts and wills to get through anything;  This, even though some of my favorite people have lost parents in their youth!

But what I realized today is assurance of love and community were the things I was never quite as sure of when I was a kid.  These are not things my kids are unsure of.  I mean you know, I always felt loved and safe... but whatever, I don't know why I felt the way I did, but I think this is the key because I breathed deep as soon as I figured it out.

It has taken a huge weight off my shoulders.  I mean, I will weep with my children in their pain whether I am here on Earth or in Heaven.  But, I don't really have any idea what they will each struggle with most individually.  There is something about that that takes the control away from my and therefore some of the anxiety.

Which is amazing.

Hey ABBY, JACK, & FINN!  I'm talking to you! I ADORE you.  I LOVE YOU.  And I would never ever choose to abandon you.

So whether I leave you too soon or in as many decades as I can stretch it, you need to go through whatever feelings that you have to.  There are no shortcuts.  But however you wander come back to Christ and therefore me, ok?

mom

20 years together 19 years apart

Steve and I were 19 turning 20 when we met and started dating.  May 11, 2016 will be the 20th anniversary of our first date.

So, does that mean - yeah we will have been together more of our life than we've been apart.  I've heard that statistic before but weirdly I always assumed I'd be a lot older when it happened to us (maybe I just thought this 39 was "a lot older").  AND, more, I always thought I would feel the weight of that statistic... like I would feel like our relationship was done in a way - that the next fifty years or so would just be coasting.

But married 17 years doesn't feel any longer than being married 2 - it's been infinite and it's been a blink -it's both.  It's better! In every way better! And I am more confident in every way in us and Steve and me.  But I don't feel solid as if there's no work to be done, nothing to fear, nowhere to progress.

If anything the things that have fallen away are the feelings of trying to make life fair.  After years of trying to focus less on what I would change about him and more what I would change in myself I think it's finally my natural instinct.  I'm not saying I necessarily do much about it.  But my discontent is much more about myself than him.  And considering how truly sweet and awesome he is, I think that's just fine.



...



I mean, it does still bother me to when he puts his dirty socks in the wrong place, but nevermind... we've got years to figure that out... or maybe I just take away all his socks.

Who made who?

As I keep saying, I am aware that right now I am living in a Renaissance of my life that is going to be pretty hard to beat. While I still have the basic worries over how my children will succeed in life and wanting everyone to be safe and healthy and well rounded enough to have a chance at the sort of Renaissance I am enjoying; Things are moving along towards those goals pretty smoothly.  Which gives way to reflection.
Funnily enough I think I've been surprised by pretty much everything to do with parenting.  For someone who's biggest dream as a child was to be a wife and a mother I sure had no idea what I was getting into.  LOVE, though expected, still had a way of surprising.  As I hope I've documented elsewhere - when I was pregnant with Abby, as attached as I was to the baby moving around in my belly, it was nothing compared to how I immediately loved/adored her when she cried in the nurse's hands.  I hadn't seen or touched her - I just heard her.  And I loved her.  TO infinity.  

Early baby times with Jack were overwhelming with love as well - he adored me.  But when I reflect on what being his mom has meant for my growth I think about responsibility and power.  He is a bundle of awesome and sometimes it's been my job to show him how to contain it - wield it.  That sounds simple and trite, but it has been the toughest part of parenting him.  And when I look further back, I felt the same about Abby - this responsibility to help her figure out how to be as awesome as she was, just with a slightly different type of power.

Finn is just another kettle of fish entirely from either of the other two.  But the thing that strikes me most is just how easy it is for him to love.  He loves me with an easy and absolute affection.    

I struggle with how to write about the difference between the kids.  I don't yet know exactly what weird things I've messed up in their hearts and so I don't know what they'll be sensitive about. 

There are no favorites.  I have favorite times with each of the kids. I have favorite dreams for their futures.  They each bring out different parts of me and my worries for each of them are totally contradictory.  They are each a total mystery to me and yet I know and understand them better than anyone else.  Here are a few of my "mosts" as they stand now.

I anticipate most what Jack will be like as a young man.  Before work and marriage and fatherhood humble him too much.  He's just such a FORCE to be reckoned with - so loving and upright.  I think he'll be just a tad too confident but it will be absolutely charming so no one will mind.  I think he'll be hilarious and strong.

I'm most interested to see who Finn will be because, he's just so... fine most of the time.  Sure, he errs on the scared side right now, but he's not the kind of kid who's going to be ok with that for long.  And unlike how I would assume people change - gradually and with life experience egging them on - NOPE Finn changes cuz he wants to, when he wants to.  When he's sick of being scared he'll tell himself not to be and he won't be.  I mean.  It's just wacky.  What will that mean when he's an adult? He'll be unstoppable, like Jack, and yet he won't have quite the same fierceness that Jack will have... What will that look like?!

I'm most emotional about Abby being an adult.  She's always been amazing and she always will be.  But I don't think she'll change.  Talk to her for an hour today? I'll bet you money she'll be just as much of a delight in ten years.  She's already so much of herself.  Maybe that's why I'm emotional?  Because most of the job is already done and, when all was said and done, she did it herself.  It's like I showed her how paths work and then she made her own and went running.

Paths.  I know they can't be smooth.  But I pray for our family's to be long and joined together!

If it's not the WORST...

I think people tend to see me in very contradictory terms.

Newly met people often find me delightfully laid back.

People I have known for a long time find me frustratingly wound tight.

I think that's weird.  But nothing I plan on changing.  I had a friend when I was young who was always searching for depth and spiritual awesomeness.  She was/is great.  But she said something deep  (after reading something deep by someone deep) that has continued to give me pause.

She said she would want her epitaph to be (I'm paraphrasing) that she was the same person to everyone in her life.  By that, I'm pretty sure she meant that she didn't pretend to be different for different classes or people and that anyone and everyone could trust that what she said was what she meant and what she felt.  I mean we were in high school so I'm assuming her thoughts were running along the lines of cliques, gossip, and posers ;).

But it always bothered me because I am very fluid with people.  I have a core of iron - I WILL NOT do what I WILL NOT do... but everything else changes depending on who I'm with.  If I need to be a temporary extrovert or crazy positive or carefully neutral in order to make a situation better/funner I can do that.  I even dress to suit who I'm around.  Does that mean fancier/more expensive? Not so much - more like more buttoned up or more laid back.

The thing is, this doesn't feel disingenuous to me.  I am all the things I purport to be, just not all the time.

I really am very laid back unless I'm afraid of leaving my children motherless, my kids getting injured/humiliated... or parking somewhere unfamiliar... OR trying to fulfill expectations of normal behavior from normal people - like being a room mom or something like that.

Anyway, barring those things I think people see me as laid back because as long as the WORST isn't happening;  As long as this moment is better/easier than the worst times I've had - then my expectations are pretty non-existent.  I'd really just like to wave NOT THE WORST moments to infinity.  My kids are SO MUCH EASIER than they were a few years ago - I was a stress ball about them a few years ago.  A few years ago I was hanging onto my sanity and patience by a thread by the time bedtime rolled around.  Now? 99% of the time it is never the WORST day.  So, hey, what do I care about everything else?

Eventually the rooms will get clean.
Eventually they will learn the math they have to learn.
Eventually everything will be different.
And, unfortunately, eventually I won't remember 99% of any of this.

So who cares?