I’m overweight and old. In a society that values petite, young women, I am discarded… as many of us are. And, when we become outcasts — trodden down by our society’s collective unconscious — we personally take part in the attack and erosion of our self-belief and self-esteem. The mind churns out a repetitive tape of negative criticism regarding our looks. We counter-attack our own thoughts as best we can, but as we step out of our doors completely aware of what strangers and friends alike will see when they look at us, the looped tape begins again.
And how does one get off this hellish circular ride? By truly seeing beauty: the laughter, the love, the eternal potential that lies in all of us.  This is not an easy thing to do — to see past the apparent — and certainly not one that I have mastered. But it’s a hope. And a promise.
We really all are beautiful if you open your heart. And that’s a true statement, not just a New Age, self-help Pollyanna platitude. So look at those photos of yourself and see yourself again for the first time; see the laughter and love and finally — finally – be free.
How did this philosophical introspection begin, you ask? We just got back from England and I am in a lot of the photos with my round body and my red cherub face full of wrinkles. I look like Mrs Clause in a short skirt. Like many people, my immediate thought was, “I need to lose weight. I look terrible.” But instead of quickly skipping past the photos in shame, I decided to actually look at myself. And in the end, I liked what I saw. What matters in this life is our connection with people and our shared experiences, and that is what I saw underneath the extra weight and wrinkles. For the first time, I saw me.
Lindsey and I in London
18 June 2008
Ben and Allison’s Wedding
21 June 2008
At Ben and Allison’s Wedding
21 June 2008
Eating ice cream at the wedding breakfast
21 June 2008
At the park
Wells-next-the-sea, England
22 June 2008
At the park
Wells-next-the-sea, England
22 June 2008
In the back garden
Wells-next-the-sea, England
22 June 2008
At Sandringham
24 June 2008
At Sandringham
24 June 2008
In the car driving back from Sandringham
24 June 2008
And that’s my challenge to the folks who read this blog entry. Find your self in your photos. You’re there, waiting to be seen.
The kids and I
08 June 2008
Everytime I see this wall plaque, I think of my husband:
He is the kind of boy that won’t make you cry. 🙂
Today’s blog entry is another photography lesson. Today we will be discussing flash vs. natural lighting. A camera flash, though it gets the job done and is necessary for low-light situations, creates a very flat picture.
Damian
08 June 2008
Damian
08 June 2008
Natural light bestows an ethereal quality onto a photo.
Damian
08 June 2008
Damian
08 June 2008
Sure it’s an extra $500 for the “fast” lens that goes all the way down to F2, but it enables you to use natural lighting in low-light situations and is therefore definitely worth the money. 🙂
Wouldn’t you love to see the world
through a child’s eyes for just a few moments?
It seems to be all laughter and beauty sometimes.
Damian
08 June 2008
We leave for England on Friday. Matt is not flying with us, and I refuse to travel internationally with two small children, so Lindsey is going with us to England to help me with the children on the journey. Matt will be joining us next week.
I don’t handle stress well… I don’t handle it well at all. So, as this large trip approaches, I am slowing down, freaking out, and becoming very irritable. Hopefully myself and my family will come through the preparations for this trip emotionally unscarred, but I’m not making any promises.
Lily in the computer room.
29 May 2008
Daddy and Lily at Destiny’s birthday party.
31 May 2008
No entry today. Just a couple of pictures for Grannie and Grandpa over the sea. 🙂
Uncle Steve, Lily and Clara
over Memorial weekend.
25 May 2008
As I have mentioned (several times by this point, I think), I love my DIY Planner. I even made a 2-pages per day template and submitted it to the DIY Planner site. Last night, I tweaked my daily template design to fit the FlyLady system for keeping a house. I LOVE my new daily pages that now have my Morning, Afternoon, and Evening routines in them.
However, as wonderful as my little DIY Planner is, full of its scheduled appointments, routines, and task lists, it does have one drawback: sometimes I feel like I’m not working fast enough or hard enough. When my little checkboxes remain unchecked, I get sad and feel like a loser.
That was not my original intent when I created my beautiful DIY Planner. It was to be a tool to stay focused and bring about desired personal change — a tool for manifestation, if we would like to venture into the world of New Age terminology. And it has brought about a great deal of wonderful change. It does help me stay focused on what is important to me…
… but it also makes me feel like a loser sometimes.
Now that is a personal problem I have to work through. My little DIY Planner is just an object. The emotions… well, that’s all me. And I don’t like having negative emotions around something that I created and love so much. So, I’ll be working through those feelings over the next couple of days.
Well, that was a wonderful session! Who needs a therapist when you have a blog? 🙂
Matt, Lily and I
25 May 2008
I’m writing in my journal because it is on my to-do list.  There. Now I can check that one off. 😉