My boss gifted me what could only be described as the quintessential classical music collection on 100s of CDs that were sitting in a box in his garage from a previous life. I have felt perpetually behind this year, and this just made it more jumbled. I spent weeks going through disc after disc in my car, searching for stuff not worth keeping, but didn't find much. I have really only tossed about 10, and those were either obnoxiously "modern" or painfully Baroque;
if you've spent any time with this music, you know exactly what I'm talking about: either so shrill and tinny that you want to dig your eardrums out with an ice pick, or random chaotic notes that make you want to not turn on a curvy road. I had to buy an additional hard drive to fit all this music, which I could never imagine having the time or finances to amass, and ripped over one hundred before I realized that my iTunes was not at optimal import settings, so I had to start over.
Now I'm scanning negatives and ripping CDs like a madman. My eyes are seriously crossing over here. I'm also seriously starting to stress a shoot we're supposed to have on Sunday. All of this is supposed to be fun, isn't it? I'm breathing, and we're doing this.
Have I ever mentioned how much I hate Mother's Day? Well, I do, for reasons obvious to those who picked up on the subtle life hints I've left in these blogs over the last decade; almost as obvious as why I hate Valentine's Day, and no it's not the corporate holiday, or silly male view on romanticism reasoning. I believe I may have also mentioned at some point, or most point, how amazing this mother is that has graced me with a snippet of her life... behold, the conundrum: my love for this woman runs as deep as my hatred for this "holiday," so we spent the first couple years fighting because I didn't do anything for her on Mother's Day.
So, along with my curling up in an emotional ball around this holiday, I have also formed some anxiety because I don't want to fight, but I also love her immensely, and want to show her, but don't want to need to because she should know, but she obviously needs to be told and shown sometimes... AAAAAAAAAargh... can't we just go to the beach and enjoy a day off?! So, we're going to the beach, and I love her for that........... and I'm sorry I'm such an emotional ruh-tard.
"God laid down this law, saying: if you want some good, get it from yourself." ~ Epictetus
It is so easy to forget that we shape our lives with attitude; not in what happens to us, but how we choose to respond and what we do.
It is so easy to get caught up in the jumble of things not being good enough, or not how you wish they were. At the end of the day, we are all human, wrapped up in the swirl of emotions and overthinking. Something about standing in the unforgivably sharp desert in bloom forces one to step back from all the stupid shit and take a deep breath. Usually, the more you try to stay on track with attitude, the more you slip into it because you're focused on it. You can only laugh things off so many times before the smile fades and the middle fingers come out.
It takes a lot of effort in this world to just keep laughing. Don't sweat the stupid shit, and it's all stupid shit. I will always say that human's greatest fault is taking itself too seriously. We are all just trying to figure things out, and doing the best we can. We should all also be laughing about the stupid shit that we allow to bother us. I, personally, need to stop talking about all the things I can't afford, because all I really need to be able to afford is being the best person I can, and smiling about how absurd this has all become. I am truly blessed to have found so many souls willing to participate in my adventure. I need to remember that.
I always cringe when I get last minute messages from models about being in my area, because I can rarely make it work. This one sent me a message way back before I had to come to terms with the fact that I couldn’t really do this right now.
She mentioned tentatively being in LA in May, so I told her I was actually out by Joshua Tree, and she said she would be coming to JT anyway, so I told her to send me a message closer to the date, then months of silence. I had noticed that she was posting photos from Sedona, but there is a lot of land between here and there, then I got a message on Saturday saying she would be here today. Shit. I sent the depressing, automated response that we couldn’t really afford it right now, and she responded that she really wanted to work with me…..whaaaaaaat?!
Sunday just happened to be my only real day off, so we made something work that made everyone involved happy, and I got a serious ego boost. On top of that, my wife received a message from a photographer who was supposed to shoot with Wonderhussy in JT, but she up and went to friggin Namibia, and Sarah not only referenced my work to this photographer, but recommended my wife as a model in the area……. Whaaaaaaaaaaaat?!
The punchline to that is that my wife is done/kind of done/not really done/completely done with modeling, BUT ego high fives all around. *cue The Jefferson’s theme* Now if I could just get Thomas Holm and Roarie Yum to come up and try my beer while they’re in town for the Palm Springs Photo Festival this week, that I can’t afford to attend, my life would be temporarily complete. Back to Sunday, Lyra was awesome. We spent most the time dodging tourists while her boyfriend mountain-goated some climbing spots. I didn't think about it heading out, but JT was in bloom, something I've never seen because I maliciously avoid the park when it is flooded with tourists.
Luckily there are plenty of nooks and crannies to sneak into, though it is always inevitable that some unsuspecting wanderer get an accidental eyeful. Once again in my journey, we were unscathed by rangers, so we apparently didn't offend anyone.
In my little dream world, this is what it would be like: when photographers and models come to JT, we're the ones they hit up to work with...because we're awesome. I mean, our guest room has been open to creatives coming through for a while, but who comes to Idyllwild? No one. No one comes through Idyllwild........... yet.
It will always amaze me how much the Universe opens up when you come to terms with the fact that there are certain things that you just can't do. It is as if the infinite energy knows what you're supposed to be doing, and when you hit a wall it immediately responds with, "oh yeah?" Not only was I graced with an impromptu shoot Friday, but I was hit up by a model coming through Joshua Tree on Saturday, "I'll be in Joshua Tree today."... make it work or don't... a nice little ante up from the powers that be.
Things will never be what we expect them to be, obviously, but I do what I can to jump at the opportunity to make the most of whatever I can. When you are searching for it, it is nowhere to be found; but when you give up it knocks on your door and tells you that you need to keep going.
You may not know exactly what you're doing, but you need to keep going. This time I only said I was taking break, but I never found myself with more opportunity than when I had given up completely. I will never be able to truly articulate how grateful I am for the souls that find their way into my life and work, and we all just keep going. One constant remains: trying to explain to people that true beauty lies in being, not in trying to be something.
I have been repeating myself for a decade now, in as many different ways as I can think up. I suppose I will have to keep doing that until I've scared everyone off, or finally impacted someone. On my old blog, where I was posting every other day, these random meanderings and scattered thoughts seemed a bit endearing, but on my website they feel more like I had no idea what to write about when I went into this.
I feel like this needs to be more structured and thought out, but this is what I'm doing, and the Universe is telling me to keep doing it. These posts were also always a way for me to figure shit out, but more and more I am figuring out that I need to stop making excuses for who I am and what I'm doing, and the Universe seems to concur.
It will never matter who you try so desperately to be, or what you are wearing to look like what you think you're supposed to; all that will ever matter is who you are. Being makes us beautiful; you can't fake that. Just keep being.
