Last month a photovangelist saved my life

"The difference between a rut and a grave is the depth" ~Gerald Burrill

Life has a way of breaking you down - almost in a scientific sense - to your base elements. And you suddenly find yourself a collection of pieces... to be sifted, sorted and put back together. 

When I got the opportunity to finally be shot solo by Saddi Khali, I was in pieces such as those.

It wasn't my first tryst with Saddi: in March last year, The Mr and I did a couple's shoot and it was

incredible. I thought then that I had been changed, but I really had no idea! The photos were amazingly beautiful, and to see ourselves reflected - six years of marriage, one child and, 20kgs later - as still vibrant and sexy blew my mind! I was sold. I was an evangelist for the photovangelist - telling all and sundry about the experience and recommending it to anyone that would give me the chance.

But then, I went solo. A month ago to be exact. 

I was ripe for the experience: almost 40kgs overweight, two children into it, my lifeless career hanging by a thread. I knew something had to give but I wasn't sure what, when or how.

The pre-shoot talk happened without me even noticing it. We spoke casually, catching up on events since the last shoot. I shared. He listened to me and challenged me. Little did I know I was being processed... and not in the way of something being forcibly done to me - but as though somehow something was happening within me. I was seeing myself with more clarity with every conversation. 

Saddi has an incredible gift. His special 'eye' is not limited only to the two he uses to find focus from behind the lens; it is also in the way he reads his subjects. He has an uncanny way of just knowing... of knowing things he really has no business knowing. It was as if he immediately knew all of the things that I was not saying - and he called me out on *each* and *every* single one of them.

On the day of the shoot, I was nervous - not about dis-robing, but about everything that would happen afterwards. Many will tell you that Saddi shows you the beauty that he sees in you (and that is there to begin with). That's true. But he also shows you what you are putting out into the world. When you combine a high-resolution camera and natural light, your unintentional bitch-face is hard to deny. BUT when - moments later - you see how you look when you are relaxed, when you are happy, when you are comfortable; you cannot imagine any other way to be.

It was the contrast of the two that changed my life. I cannot begin to describe how it feels to see yourself as more than beautiful... stunning, gorgeous, a true work-of-art. Not in an egotistic or delusional way, but simply because the proof is right there in front of you, on the display screen of this man's camera. Exhibit A. Irrefutable, undeniable, real.

You have no choice but to see yourself differently. To believe differently of yourself. To expect different things from yourself. You simply have no choice. 

That is what the Saddi Khali experience did for me. I could not, in good conscience, bear witness to the overwhelming beauty that is me in my natural state (... and believe me, I was overwhelmed) and then go home and continue to be anything less. 

I realised that the pursed lips and terrified eyes I had been walking around with are neither beautiful nor natural. They are not the me that is meant to be. 

And when you know what you can be as well as what you are not - the next step is a no-brainer. You want to be that beauty all the time. You want to be comfortable, you want to be real. And so you reevaluate the fakeness in you, the wackness in you. The pursed lips and terrified eyes of your spirit; you want them gone.

It's been just about a month now and, since my shoot, life has opened up as if it's been waiting for me all along. I've opened up too. It feels like the universe is conspiring to affirm my potential for greatness at every available turn.

And my soul faces every moment with a smile that spreads right from my lips to my eyes - no more pursing, no more terror... just open.

What a difference a day makes

“There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.” ~Aldous Huxley

Hard to believe it's July already... and even harder to believe July's almost over. Little Tyke will have been in Z for exactly eight months tomorrow. I dare not even try and imagine the changes that have happened in *his* life since then, so I'll just focus on the changes in mine.

For years now, I've been yearning for more fulfillment in my professional life, yet to even try to make that happen for myself without a fool-proof plan seemed selfish at best. The fact my current job was not even showing me the simple courtesy of paying my bills wasn't helping. I was in a place where everything was about money, making ends meet; just month-to-month to month stuff. Depressing as hell. The goal became to simply get a job that paid me better, forget about a job that actually made me feel better.

Of course, that went against everything I stood for. Every fibre of my being rebelled against that paradigm and the agonising conformity of it all. But, I was a mother; a wife; part of a team - so I needed to do what I needed to do. For the team. I had accepted it. I was ready for it. I was going to do it.

But the universe, as I was to later find out, had something else in store for me.

Anyway, once - with the help (i.e. persistent 'advice') of The Mr - I got over my paralysing sense of loyalty to my 'boss', I started looking. I wrote her a letter explaining it all... How I was struggling financially, how I had a passion for interior design and how I, basically, didn't know what the Fuck I was doing! (The phrase, 'You ain't gotta go home, but you gotta get the hell up outta here' comes to mind). I'd had it. I didn't say it in as many words, but I had had it!

The search started off with gusto. I knew I wanted to go into online & digital marketing. I was so interested in it, I knew I could do it and I'd be great at it. All I needed was to get my foot in the door. But eventually, the hours and hours of research; a multitude of CV drafts, applications, customised cover-letters and fruitless follow-ups had me spent. I broadened the search to include even the same brain-dead mundanity I had been doing for the past six years. Still nothing. Enthusiasm waned and soon enough my old friend, self-pity, came back for an extended visit.

It was The Mr (bless his soul) who kept things going... sending my CV out, speaking to his friends, acquaintances and any recruitment agents he'd found along the way. Then, finally, it happened. A breakthrough. The Mr made the hook-up and I sealed the deal with the interview. I started working there almost as quickly as the opportunity came about. And it's been beautiful!

It's a small start-up and the position is just part-time and only a supplement to my current salary, but it also happens to have placed my foot squarely in the exact door I wanted. The best part is my 'new boss' has so much passion and vision. It's infectious. I feel valued; like I'm a part of something.  So now, even though the end-of-the-month still comes with the same old worries, somehow everything has changed. The money doesn't even really matter because for the first time in a long time I'm loving what I do.

The biggest lesson? It's actually made me a better mother; a better wife; a better part of the team. All because it's made me a better ME!

What happened?

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.  ~William Shakespeare

My little sister wrote a note about me on Facebook today. She's 18. She wrote about how much she admired me, how much she used to (and still does) want to be like me....

i remember sneaking in to your room when you were out of the house back when i used to visit you and Daddy over the holidays. I thought you were the coolest, most creative person on the face of the planet! The glow in the dark stars on the ceiling, the handwritten poems on the wall, all the old bottles you kept as candle holders. Your room became the best room in the house for me: not only was it filled with the most fascinating things, but also because i hoped that the longer i sat at your desk, the more i read your poems, the longer i listened to your Lauryn Hill cd, the more i would become like you. To me the ultimate compliment was "You have the same laugh as your sister" As soon as i had a steady hand i would paint my nails dark blue with white spots, the way i had seen you do. I started collecting teddy bears because of the three that stayed on your bed well into your varsity years. I still want to be just like you when im older. My awe over you has not faded through the years. Beauty, kindness, creativity. Forever the coolest big sister.

I was transported. Instantly. To a time that now seems so long ago. To a me that now seems so far away. But I was also forced to ask some questions (as I so often do), "Was it all really so long ago and far away?" "What's really changed?". I'm still me... right? Apart from the job, the bills, the kid, the husband... I'm still me. Or am I? Should I be? Never I was more confident, never happier, never more sure of anything than I was back then. That can only be good. Right?

It's the perennial paradox of my 'adult' life... being the same, while being so different. How does that happen? What switch did I flip? WTF happened?? Why shouldn't I still have poems on my wall, and glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling? Why shouldn't I still be the same big sister that sparked a little girl's imagination and filled her with the possibilities of all that can be - with a little faith in yourself and a little strength of your convictions?

I'm older. I know more. And yet, never have I felt smaller and less sure.

Back then, I wasn't afraid to be wrong. I wasn't afraid to live... because life was all I had. The raw experience of it; the heady intoxication of it. Alive and in the moment was the only way to be.

Fuck fear! Fuck propriety! Fuck me... I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing!

Fair is fair

It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.  ~Earl Warren

Sometimes I just want to run away. It gets too much. I feel like I hate my life; like I could have done so much better. But now it's too late. I'm stuck. Trapped.

I hate it when those days come around.

I hate feeling like I want to run away from my husband; from my child. They don't deserve it. And it's definitely not because of them that I feel that way. I saw it in The Mr's eyes today. He had seen it in me. The last time that happened, was also the first time I'd ever heard him even hint at 'forever' not actually happening for us. It scares me, because it controls me. When it takes hold, it's this overwhelming destructive force - laying waste to everything in its wake.

I'm watching him pace around the house as I write this. Tension hovering between us. I still feel the feelings, but I've come far enough to at least recognise them now. I at least know enough stop it. I can not; will not make my family casualties of the internal battle that rages in my own mind.

It's just not fair.

On growing up

Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.  ~Chili Davis

I had to laugh at myself the other day. Chatting to my crazy friends, I quipped "Wow. I can just imagine us twenty years from now - as grown ups - talking all this smack. What will our kids think?"

I laughed. At 28 years-old, I'm still not a grown-up? I sure as hell don't feel like one. What is a grown-up? The idea of it still daunts me. There just seems to be so much attached to it. What does it really mean? I find it terrifying. It seems as if in order to truly be 'grown-up', you have to let go of some(every)thing.

Everyone's familiar with the bible passage that says, "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." Is that what's expected of me? To put away childish things? But what if I *like* my childish things? 


What if I'm still insecure and like to be affirmed? What if I still want to have it easy; party all night;  Does that make me any less of a 'grown-up'? That phrase in itself implies a definite state - unmistakable and completely measurable. Almost like you need to have taken on a new form, like a catterpillar to a butterfly. The end of the cycle; fully evolved. 


But is that what it is really? Why a grown-up? How about a grown-higher?
Do we ever stop growing up?

Growth

God has entrusted me with myself.  ~Epictetus

Somebody I follow on Twitter inspired me to write this - but more importantly, to share it.

The longer I run, the more I am willing to let catch up with me;
The more ground I cover, the less the race means.
The further from fun, the more like unadulterated bliss it will be;
The less it is fantasy, the more surreal it feels.

Reckless is cautious; and down somehow becomes up.
The answers turn obvious, when you learn to fill your own cup.

The years become welcome, when growth proves itself boundless;

The urge to control dissipates, though you paint you your own canvas.

The noise of urgency succumbs, to a love that is soundless.

And self becomes all you hear, when age finally overcomes brashness.

At last...

To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. ~Lewis B. Smedes, "Forgiveness - The Power to Change the Past," Christianity Today, 7 January 1983

Almost a full month since my last post... I've actually been drafting this post for the last week. Well, not this post exactly, but what was to be my next post. Today, I just started typing and looks like I'm gonna just have to throw all the past week's work away.

Why? Because it just doesn't apply any more.

Yesterday, I get a facebook message from X (long, long story - but basically a former bf. My first love and my first - and only - paradigm-shifting, earth-shattering heartbreak).

He’s growing his business empire and needs some branding and communication work done for his businesses. Just my game, so I’m like “sure, let’s meet”, what happened thereafter took place so quickly that, amidst the excitement of the idea of an extra paying job, it didn't totally register. All I knew was one moment I was minding my own business, and the next… there I was, facing the prospect of coming face to face with a man that I hadn’t seen in two years, or had a conversation with in close on five years. Not to mention the six-year-long tumultuous story that is our history.

Whoa!

I remember getting home after running errands all morning, and thinking to myself “Am I ready for this? Really ready?” The guy’s arriving in twenty minutes and I’m this close to pulling out my phone and calling him to say something had come up and I couldn’t meet with him! Had I had his phone number, I might actually have done that.

I was overcome by the urge to do something, anything to show him that I was doing okay. Clean the house up, mop the floor, buy some filter coffee so I wouldn’t offer him my usual instant stuff - anything. Luckily (and you’ll understand why in a moment), my morning schedule had left me no time for such preparations. So I just sucked it up.

Right on time - 12:59 on the dot, a knock on the door. It could only be him. I get up from my chair and to the front door. And I hesitate… for one painful moment, my heart starts palpitating as I clumsily try to find the key for the exterior security gate.

Deep breath...!

I open the door, and instinctively avoid more than a fleeting moment of solid eye-contact. I try to sound as nonchalantly pleasant as possible as I greet with a familiar, “heey!” while unlocking the security gate.

I turn around to lead him into the house, and every fibre in my being is screaming “Bad IDEA!!!”. But I catch myself with a stern “this is business!”, as I turn back around to lock up behind him. “Let’s go into the office”, I say. I lead him in, he takes a seat and pulls out the non-disclosure agreement he brought for me to sign. I smile a little on the inside… so typical of him. He’s always been paranoid and reluctant to trust. No surprise he’s still the same in business.

I make myself comfortable, secretly thanking the universe for her mysterious ways. If I hadn’t been so busy all morning, I would’ve responded to his facebook requests for my email address in time for him to send the agreement ahead of time and give me a chance to go through it before we met. As I read through the document, I breathe a huge sigh of relief and say a silent thanks for those few extra minutes to just centre myself and regain control. Luckily, that was not a difficult task.

The rest of the meeting went well. His plans and ideas all sound great, and it’s a fantastic project for our little company to get involved in. Huge potential for growth. On the business side, it really was a welcome highlight of the past month. But that will be the subject of another post.....

This little preamble creates the context for the point of today’s blog post. It’s all about how far I’ve come in my life. I can scarcely believe that, not more than 5 or 6 years ago, I could have never handled such a meeting.

At this moment, I pause… trying to find the words to describe what my relationship with this man has meant, done, been and represented in my life. In fact, the words do not exist. It was so intense, so entrenched, that it is impossible to describe. Point being, there was a time when I thought I would never get over it. There was a time when I could not see (no matter how far into the future I tried to look) a stage in my life when I would not still think of him, miss him, hate him, love him; when his memory and the memory of our time ‘together’ would not haunt my every waking moment.

That’s what it was.

That said, yesterday I proved to myself, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I am infinitely stronger than I ever thought or imagined I could be. I could not believe how unaffected I was. Apart, of course, from my initial nervousness - I felt total calm. There was nothing there. Not the intense anger or consuming sorrow, the bitter resentment or even the souldeep hurt that I thought I would carry with me for all my days. Just complete neutrality.

In between the business talk, there were moments when I would look at him - almost staring, straight into his eyes - searching for something... an inkling, a reminder of all of that heavy emotion that has always accompanied my interactions with him, whether in my mind or face-to-face. But there was nothing there! I felt like I was staring my greatest demon in the eye, facing off for the final deciding show-down. Victory was mine!

I looked at him as simply another human being. I felt no less respect for him than I would for anyone else that I have known for as long, like an old friend or family member. I can’t express what it meant to me to know that that one element of my past did not have the hold on me that I had feared it would.

How empowering to know that we can rise above the circumstances of our lives; that the human spirit triumphs - always; that as long as we are willing to accept and (more importantly) learn from the hard lessons that life throws our way, we will always be more than the sum of our experiences.

Though this may sound like utter rambling, I need to really put across – in the most concrete of terms - what a watershed this moment this was for me. In my 27 years of life. In all my existence, this moment stands out as one of the most positive realisations I have ever, ever... ever had!

Forgiveness, at last. Freedom, at long last!

To be free - truly free of the binds of one’s past; to separate one’s being from the events that have shaped it, is a quest that few of us ever truly master. And I have finally and conclusively seen that it really is possible. Really and truly possible.

Forgiveness at last.

FREEDOM AT LONG LAST.

"After everything that we’ve been through, I just want you to know that I still love you/ Want you to know that I forgive you (thank you for teaching me how to give)/ And I wanna let you know how much you changed my life/ I wanna let you know you taught me how to fly/ And I wrote this song to tell you this/ I’m better ‘cause you taught me how to give.
I took a swim in the sea of guilt and misery/ To find myself on an island in the middle of nowhere/ In my solitude I asked to know the highest truth/ And what I was told is to thine own self be true.
If Jesus can forgive crucifixion/ Surely we can survive and find a resolution.
Let’s keep it Moving/ Let’s shake free this gravity of resentment and fly high/ You’re only human/ Let’s shake free this gravity of judgement and fly high on the wings of forgiveness".
©
- India.Arie ~ Wings of Forgiveness "Testimony Vol. 1 Life & Relationships"