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.

...full circle...

The Present is a Point just passed.  ~David Russell

I read today that time is like the wind - it lifts the light and leaves the heavy.

I've come full circle... back to the point from which I started. And yet there's been so much in between - so much that I could have never predicted I'd be back to facing the prospect of my son living away from me. I could have never guessed that I'd be trying (again) to start over with The Mr. I could never have imagined I'd be back here again.

For no other reason than that there's been so much in between...

And now that I'm standing on the other side, all I know is that I've always known it - everything that I needed to know I already knew. Maybe there is something to be said for being dragged through hellfire. Maybe we really do need to come face-to-face with everything we never thought we'd survive just so we know that we can. Maybe that's the push we need to stop surviving and start living. I pray only that is what it is for me, because if I ever had to re-live the past 3 months again... then I just wouldn't know anything anymore.

But the best thing about coming full circle, is that coming to the beginning means you've finally reached the end. And, even better, reaching the end means another beginning. Onward. I am blessed to be given a chance to do it again and I pray that I for as long as I am able, I will always chose to do it again, and do it better with each turn.

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?