about a photo & a comment...

"This is my bliss face. I've never seen it before."

You know, it's funny how someone can innocently teach you something just by speaking. [or, in this case typing]

This is my sister-in-law. On her wedding day. I posted this photo on Facebook. The quote is her comment to me on the photo......

You know what? I think that's what I want to do to/for people with my photos. -well, some of them anyway. Show them what they've never seen. I'd like to do that with my portrait photos. Show people... the beauty & joy of themselves. Beauty they might not stop to see. A value in themselves that maybe they haven't believed in.

I've seen Marianne ["Mare" as we call her] go through struggles... maybe that's part of the joy I feel in her comment. That I could capture for her a moment of bliss. A spark of joy. The beginning of a new chapter in her life. Honored that I could be there. Thankful to be able to stand with her family. To be able to stand with Ben's family. To be able to stand with their friends. [they have such cool friends]

Though, my thoughts on this... as they wash over my mind like waves on a beach. Make me realize how selfish I've been. How my own insecurities... punish more than just me. Rob others as much as myself. For so long I haven't "enjoyed myself". To some degree, I've kept others from their ability to enjoy me fully as well. Not that my life has been all painful. It surely hasn't. It surely could be much worse. [& could have been so for a great deal longer] I'm just continually becoming aware of how my brokenness ...the depth of it. the height of it, the insidiousness of it. The limitations it put on my.

Yet I am also becoming aware of how to gently step outside of it. And live. Marianne's comment... so helps in this regard. It's like a nudge or an alarm. Wake up. Keep going. There's so much more to see. So much more to journey to. Even if getting there isn't any of the fun. Arriving will be.

I guess it also reminds me that I've been seeing ...ways to joy in my life. I never realized how alive I could feel... till I began to take more forays into artistic endeavors. Hiking...painting... writing... photography... cooking...baking... I want to eventually break out my guitars & play them again. Just to see where that might also lead. I'm ..."excitedly scared"... or, is that scared excited?

How can you be someone who enjoys being a "wall flower" & end up being the center of attention somewhere?

How do you live as an introvert in an extrovert role?

[can there be such a thing as an extroverted introvert?]

So this is me. Learning to call myself an artist. Learning that being one...might be freeing.......
maybe freeing for more people
than just me....

I've been an only child my whole life....

yet, I find myself with sisters now....

brothers now... [so glad for Ben Krouse. my "new" brother-in-law]

thankful for my brothers from Wed night.

guess..... I'll never be an only child ever again.

May His grace drip from your fingers,
B