A new view…

There’s nothing quite like a fresh start — hello, new website design.

My college degree is in English, creative writing to be exact. Although running a photography business isn’t exactly linked, I strongly believe my time studying storytelling influenced who I am both as a human being and as a photographer.

When you’re creating a story, you finish your first draft with a sense of deep pride… only to realize there’s an overwhelming amount of editing to follow. Editing can be tedious, exhausting, and frustrating. It’s especially terrifying when you realize you need to throw out an entire version you created so carefully and completely start again.

Living, in fact, is a lot like writing. After all, our lives are really just a narrative we’re telling ourselves and constantly molding. The older I get, the more often I find myself editing my own life. It’s become a favorite platitude of mine: rewrite your first draft. And your next draft. And your next.

I think it’s safe to say none of us expected the story of 2020 to go the way it has - it’s been challenging for humanity collectively. We’re all mourning the plans we thought we’d be living right now. This time last year, I thought I would be living a much different story by June of 2020. Instead, I’ve experienced the death of one of my favorite people on the planet, a scary diagnosis for another person I love, the ending of relationships, the abrupt interruption of work, where I find so much fulfillment. All of this has felt like it dropped from the sky, unexpected and startling.

I used to talk often about craving peace (typical enneagram type 9 over here). In my mind, that peace was free of tumult, some theoretical mountain top where I could finally rest in the sun. But the truth of life is that it will always be shifting. It will always be challenging. It will always be uncertain. Peace can still exist in the midst of all that.

I made up this little saying I’ve been repeating to my best friend: “life is cyclical, pass it on!” I’ve experienced a lot of loss in the last year. The kind I don’t have words for, the kind that I carry even on my best days. I’m mourning several drafts of my life that demand rewriting. But really, every ending that I’ve watched wash over me gives way to another beginning. The cycle carries on.

Cheers to new beginnings, again and again.