photography

brown rice and spanish horses.

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My eyes are tired. My heart aches. I’ve cried a lot these past couple days. It comes unexpectedly, in waves. It began last night with a remark about remembering a time when you heard the desperate, all-too-real sound of sorrow. I was watching a video with a group of women, half of whom I don’t even know. Oh God, please no. Not now. This hits too close to home. I brace myself against the inevitable. Carl’s sister, Christine, is sitting next to me.

I set my coffee cup down on the floor, grab a Kleenex from my purse.

I accomplish neither before I’m sent colliding into my own internal, wailing memory. The phone call. The one that has replayed itself in my head every single day since it happened. It was morning. I was out walking my dogs in the woods, at a curve in the trail, surrounded by pine trees, the ground covered in new snow. The whole world unraveled and all I hear is my own nightmare-stricken voice…NO-NO-NO-NO-NO-NO-NO…even before I hear what is needing to be said. Something inside of me already knows what I’m going to hear and I’m screaming NO, trying to stop it, undo it, make it not real. Please God, don’t let it be real. Tell me I misunderstood. I didn’t hear right. Please, stop the terrible, unthinkable wreckage that is happening inside of me, my whole world. Stop this loss of everything in my heart. Gone. Please, God, no. Let me out. Let me out of this horrible, unthinkable, impossible news. NO-NO-NO. This cannot have happened. But it did.
It did.

The sound of my own sorrow. All these months later, the memory still deafens me.

I feel Christine’s arms around me, hugging me. I think my body might crumble, but somehow we manage to create a soft net in the outreaching of our arms that holds us through. I hear someone behind us crying also. These losses, they’re all too real. And we’re all too human. Profoundly fragile, even the strongest of us.

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Revelations 21:4

Today though, the sun is out. It feels good/It makes me sad. Sunshine mixed with the warm weather of spring confuses me. My emotions come too close to the surface. I feel like Carl should somehow be a part of all this sunshine, but he’s not. At least, not in the way I expect him to be. My make-up was wiped away by tissues and tears long before I even leave the house. I go to an early morning appointment and then the studio. I drink my coffee with cream. There is something comforting about that, a little luxury, since I more often drink it black. The studio is aglow with the warmth of sunlight.  I sit on cushions on the floor. I write for awhile, but don’t paint. I feel gratitude for the canvas sitting on the easel and its willingness to wait for me until tomorrow.

These tender days, they still happen. The sun continues to shine. My heart travels entire continents of emotions. I’m peaceful, then agitated, then grateful. I get swallowed whole with sadness, then decide to give up on whatever I’m working on and instead give myself over to editing some Lusitano and PRE photos from Spain. Yes, horse medicine. Sadness gives way to the grace and strength contained in those images. I am in awe of the beauty I’ve witnessed in this world. I wonder where life without Carl will lead me. My heart has been forever altered. Surely, this could be a gift if I allow it to be?

I try to imagine what heaven feels like. I attempt to plug into this feeling as directly as possible. This feeling of Home, I turn it into a map. A conduit, a pathway for every next step. In these moments, I feel closer to God, I feel Carl’s tremendous peace and happiness. I feel some of heaven’s presence on earth. It does exists, in glimpses. Only glimpses, all along. It is all our earthly selves can handle.

I get hungry. I make brown rice. Eventually, the cabin fills with it’s warm scent. I intended to make a vegetable curry to go along with it. But the rice smells so good. I eat it straight from the steamer I cooked it in. I am satisfied in it’s simplicity. I remember that I will be ok. I will make it through. I experienced God in a hundred different ways today. Brown rice and Spanish horses. Little by little, my heart begins to mend.

Ragamuffin.

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“Abba, I abandon myself in your hands. Do with me what you will. Whatever you may do, I thank you. I am ready for all: I accept all. Let your will be done in me and in all your creatures. I wish no more than this, O Lord. Into your hands I commend my spirit. I offer it to you with all the love of my heart, for I love you, Lord, and I give myself, surrender myself into your hands without reserve, with boundless confidence, for you are my Father.” ~Charles Foucauld

{originally published March 11, 2015}

rhythms.

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Life is both empty and full. It contains goodness beyond measure, even as I continue to swim through the challenges that each day offers.

As for Henry, ol hairy legs, this ragamuffin and companion extraordinaire…he has found his new rhythm in life. I follow his lead. He knows his place and it is with us. He is constantly finding comfort and happiness, despite all the changes in his life, and I surely do love that about him. People often oversimplify dogs and think that they are always, easily, just “in the moment.” I’m not so sure that is true. Henry has experienced his own deep grief in losing Carl. But watching him work his way through it has been a blessing each and every day.

We love you, Carl.

{originally published Feb 7, 2015}

disintegration.

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I feel sick today. Last night there was a huge, startling KABOOM that shook the house and sent the dogs running to me for protection. I didn’t know what it was. I decided that it must have been snow sliding down from the roof. Although I did not make the connection at first, it wasn’t much later that the road outside began filling with the sounds of sirens. We don’t get much siren traffic on this road and, when we do, I think all of us begin to worry what might have happened. It is one of the blessings of this somewhat rural neighborhood: we care about each other.

Police cars, fire truck, ambulance…my God. This must be what PTSD feels like. I’ve never known it before, but since Carl’s accident, it seems that I know it now. Before Christmas, I was pulled over for speeding. The police officer was nothing but nice, but as I sat in my car waiting for him to run my driver’s license, I nearly came undone. Those lights flashing in my rear view mirror. Flashing, pulsing, unrelenting in their consuming brightness. For the first time, I imagined all the lights that must have been on the scene of Carl’s wreck. My mind screaming, mentally pleading with the cop to PLEASE turn off those flashing lights!!! Pleading with myself to pleasepleaseplease hold it together, the edges of a full blown panic attack growing imminent. I’m let off with a warning. He thanks me for being a good driver. The cop has no idea of my crushing brush with panic until he hands me a Random Act of Kindness and I burst into tears. Will you be ok, he asks with kindness in his voice? Yes, yes…I will be fine. I thank him and I mean it. I drive the rest of the way home, crying my eyes out. The trauma, the kindness, the wanting Carl, for just…everything. And so it begins again last night. My quiet little world fills with flashing lights and sirens. Again, my imagination takes me to the scene of that horrible night that I wasn’t there to see. Then it loops over on itself, back to the present. I begin to worry if I might know people where all these sirens are headed. Is it my dear friends next door? Where is this dire emergency that requires so much attention? What has happened? Is anyone hurt? Dear God, has someone lost their life?

Meanwhile, Carl’s sister is on her way to pick me up. She is seeing all the flashing lights and having a similar experience of anxiousness and worry. She doesn’t yet know if they’re going to my house or somewhere else or what is even happening. When she pulls up to my cabin, I get in the car, we exchange thoughts and, for a moment, I become grateful that I am not as crazy as I feel. I’m not the only one struggling with some of these startling ways that life keeps happening around us. I become extraordinarily grateful that we have something soulful and good planned together for the evening.

I question whether I should even write about this here. It is too raw. I would prefer to reach towards optimism and hope. I want to contribute something positive to this world. Instead, all I’m capable of this morning is worrying about the house down the road. It exploded, completely obliterated. There was a man who was injured. I don’t yet know who it was and I probably don’t know him, but I worry about him and his family, too. I worry about the blizzard out east and all of the good friends I have who live there. That storm is both beautiful and ugly. I worry about the homeless people. I worry about the elderly and the sick. What will they do if they need help and can’t get it?

I feel traumatized. Like I am disintegrating.

But my spirit won’t let me stop here. I attempt to lift myself out of this. And I am hoping that it will have the circular effect of helping to lift you up, too. Over and over and over…this is perhaps the best thing we will ever do for each other. We’ll take turns. Here is my hand.

I step off my downward spiral of worry, back onto solid, snowy ground.
I take a deep breath.
I realize that I am not alone.
And neither are you.

Suddenly, the path becomes a little bit easier again.

The horse photo? Well, that is just a little gift to you and to me. A reminder that all is well, even when it doesn’t feel like it.

I love you, Carl. You pull me thru…in ways that I sometimes don’t even realize.

{originally published Jan 27, 2015}

the master weaver.

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THE PLAN OF THE MASTER WEAVER
My life is but a weaving
Between the Lord and me,
I may not choose the colors,
He knows what they should be;
For He can view the pattern
Upon the upper side
While I can see it only
On this, the under side

Sometimes He weaveth sorrow,
Which seemeth strange to me;
But I will trust His judgement
And work on faithfully;
‘Tis He who fills the shuttle,
And He knows what is best,
So I shall weave in earnest,
Leaving to Him the rest.

Not ’til the loom is silent
And the shuttle cease to fly
Shall God unroll the canvas
And explain the reason why-
The dark threads are needed
In the Weaver’s skillful hand
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern He has planned.

I took this photo in Morocco over a year ago. There was the sound of rhythm happening in their work. The thrum of threads, the movement of the shuttle–a sacred sort of sound, all its own. In the dark corner of a towering and beautiful old building of a rug seller’s shop, magic was happening. I do not know the story of these girls. I do not know if they were paid enough for what their talent deserved. I do not know what kind of hardships awaited them at home, if any at all. But what I do know is that, out of emptiness, they were creating something beautiful in both color and sound.

This prayer was given in honor of my grandpa from his union, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. It was tied with ribbons in a leather case containing an exquisitely beautiful bible, its pages edged in gold. I clutched it tight in my arms, holding it for my grandma, as the pall bearers carried my grandpa’s casket and placed it in the hearse. I was trying to comprehend the reality at hand, while my mind fiercely, sharply relived the same ritual of Carl’s casket being carried away from me only weeks before. The tears that rolled down my cheeks were huge with pain, my brain and body and heart only able to carry the weight of one loss at a time.

I share this photo in black and white because I have not yet made it to a place of color. I spend a large part of every day praying that the grand design of all this heartache will someday become known to me. And, if not the grand design, then at least some colorful sort of pattern that might light a fire in my belly once again.

I traveled in Morocco as part of an personal and ongoing project of photographing and painting stray dogs. Or, at least, that was my intention. When I got there I found that there were very, very, very few stray dogs. In a difficult economic climate, that didn’t make much sense. Even so, I was hopeful in the idea that perhaps the Moroccans were simply taking good care of their dogs. Unfortunately, I quickly learned that the lack of the stray dog population was due to the fact that they were being round up and shot to death. The cats, however, were another matter. There were cats everywhere. Many of them were in horrible condition. Others, a little more lucky if they found a kindhearted store owner who might put out some milk, food scraps, or even a cardboard box for them. I found myself being pulled down a very unexpected path, deep into the labyrinths of the medinas where, instead of photographing stray dogs, I began to photograph the cats. They were everywhere, at every turn. I was emotionally and mentally unprepared for this change of plans and the heartache I would feel at the end of each day. Even so, to be a witness to such suffering made me feel more alive. My entire life, I have been drawn to these difficult places. The places where others turn their head. Who am I, holding a dying kitten, to think that I might have anything to offer a situation as desperate as this?

Looking through photography files in search of this weaving image made me wish I had the ability to throw myself into travel once again. There are hundreds of more images, many of animals, haggard or in distress. But right now I realize that patience is required. I am in my own desperate place. The weaving that is being done is made up of dark, knotted and confusing threads. I wonder, at times, why my healing path in losing Carl has been so slow and full of seeming failure. And yet…I trust that each time I knock up against pain and disappointment, fears and deep, deep sadness that God is asking for me to reach for Him. To trust Him. We all have a different path to walk, a different purpose. Perhaps my purpose will lead me places that will require a stronger foundation than others might require.

I don’t know.

But what I feel is that this time is sacred. As difficult as it is and as much as I want to untangle myself from it…something is being woven. And in all these dark days and difficult nights, THIS is the thing that gives me hope.

I love you, Carl. I know with my whole heart that your life and death and my love for you is leading me someplace where most people don’t go.

{originally published Jan 17, 2015}

gifts.

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I just opened up a shipment of photos that I ordered the day before Carl died. Inside the box I found this. A 4″x4″ Somerset Velvet Giclee test print of my equine photography that I was daydreaming of doing something more with. It turned out beautifully. Even better than I imagined, really. Thank you for this, God. I needed it today.

I love you, Carl. Thank you for continuing to show up in the way you do.

{originally published Jan 10, 2015}

the steep part of the mountain.

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ALL IN ONE GLIMPSE

…as if, all along, you had thought the end point
might be a city with golden towers, and cheering crowds,
and turning the corner at what you thought was the end
of the road, you found just a simple reflection,
and a clear revelation beneath the face looking back
and beneath it another invitation, all in one glimpse:
like a person or a place you had sought forever,
like a bold field of freedom that beckoned you beyond;
like another life, and the road still stretching on.

Excerpt from ‘Santiago’
From PILGRIM: Poems by David Whyte

*photo credit: a photo of me in the Tetons of Wyoming by Dawn Norris Photography
*poem shared by Cynthia Eckren Jan 9, 2015}

wild horses.

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“I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.” ~Kurt Vonnegut

This photo is from a somewhat recent adventure into the wilds of the Pryor Mountains of Wyoming. We crawled out of our tents at sunrise, drank a hearty dose of camp coffee, and then headed out by foot in search of wild horses. We followed a herd most of the morning, but they were restless and we were often left on the mountain with no horses in sight. It didn’t matter. We’d find them again.The morning was cool, but inviting. We walked to the edge of the earth and then we walked some more.

My friend, Sage, shared this quote today and it made me think of this photo. I decided to dig it up from the archives and share it with you tonight. Today started out its rough and usual way…but it got better. I received and then wrote a message to Carl’s brother, Andrew. It had the miraculous effect of somehow lifting my spirits. I tended to more of Carl’s life details with his mom and then we went out for a hot chocolate. It felt good to spend some time with her, just the two of us, without the usual commotion of kids and a houseful of chatter (which I also love!). I connected with several friends, took care of the horses, tended to some Stray Dog Arts business, took a bath, gathered information for a grief counselor, unpacked more of Carl’s things, did two loads of laundry and played with the dogs.

This is what I would call a good day. Good days make me a little nervous because the few that I’ve had have been followed by even more difficult days, but…I’m going to take this day for what it is: a gift. Perhaps these gifts will start building on each other and a breathing space will occur.

These mountains and wild horses are something that Carl would have loved. I looked forward to bringing him there with me, but it never happened and now it never will. There are a lot of things that I will never get the chance to do with Carl. That is, except in spirit. I lived an adventurous life before Carl and I don’t have any plans of changing that about myself.

Everything feels craggy and broken. It’s sometimes hard to breathe. But then…there are these vistas. If I am brave, I will continue giving myself to the very edges of things. And, in this way, I will know that I have lived and loved well.

I love you, Carl. Always, you are with me. Always, you will be my most precious mountain.

And for the umpteenth time, I’ll share my very most favorite song. This song…it’s about unconditional love. Oh, this life…it has offered me much.

{originally published Jan 2, 2015}