It's been years since I last burned the granola. Three homes and one kid ago, five states away. We rented a little bungalow in midtown – two bedrooms, a little more than a thousand square feet – where my daughter took her first steps, and my husband and I walked the neighborhood most days hatching a plan to move back north. I was struggling with motherhood, having left a full-time job I didn't love to teach part-time and stay home with my new baby. Like many new moms, I felt like I lost my …
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Writing from the Heart
I have sat down to write this post several times over the last few days. The refrain playing through my head is, write from the heart. I’m not sure I even know what that means right now. Write from the heart. How? I keep telling myself to be fearless. Just go ahead and be fearless already. Write what you have to write and keep moving along. But what I have to write, what I have to say, feels like a muddy mess in my heart. Everything in there is jumbled and well-intentioned and feels overgrown …
Creative Habits and Burnout
Creativity has its own ebb and flow. It’s not a constant outpouring. Sometimes it’s a waterfall; others, it’s barely a trickle. The waterfall time is awesome, when ideas come by the bucketful and the need to create is intense. It feels so important during this time to ride the wave as far as it will take me, to jump in with both feet and embrace whatever comes. Because I know that it won’t always feel that way. The trickle is coming because it always comes. Call it burnout or exhaustion or …
Weekend by the Numbers
Last week was a long one. When the weekend rolled around with its promise of blue skies and warm afternoons, I was more than ready. Here are some of the highlights, by the numbers: 2 -- The number of daffodils my kids were allowed to pick and take to their rooms. Both daffodils were trampled and left in the yard before ever making it into the house. 4 + 3 -- The number of trash bags full of clothes + the number of boxes of books I purged from my house this weekend following The …
Falling in Love with Flare (and How to Photograph It)
I’m going to make a confession: I’m a sun flare junkie. I love turning my camera toward the sun, catching just enough of the light in my lens, and pressing the shutter once I know that rainbow swirl is locked in the frame. It makes me giddy. Last spring, I was in the woods photographing a client late in the afternoon. She wore a crown of baby’s breath and looked amazing. I had her stand with her back to the sun, told her how to position her body and hands, then said, “What I really want is to …