Category Archives: Choices

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A Room Of One’s Own And A Bathroom Too

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I have a secret I’ve been keeping from some of you and now that things are taking shape, I feel inclined to share the news. Remember what Virginia Woolf said about a woman needing “a room of one’s own” in order to write fiction…well guess what John is giving me. Yes, that’s right four walls that will exist just to serve me and I get to make all the decisions about fixtures, color, decor, flooring, anything and everything..it’s up to me. Now if a room of my own wasn’t enough by itself…John decided I should have an en-suite bath as well.  As you can see by the building plan we’re actually adding two bathrooms so instead of the bath and a half we currently have, there will soon be three bathrooms and a loo. (half bath)

I can’t begin to tell you how loved I feel by John’s decision to add on to a perfectly reasonably sized 3 bedroom bungalow in order to make me feel more welcome and at home. When I came over last May for three months, he totally restructured the closet in the master bedroom giving me the bulk of the space, later he added extra cabinets in the bathroom and bedroom for me to have enough storage for all the things a woman uses on a regular basis, then he added bookshelves and space in his study for me before revamping the kitchen and later installing more cabinets for my kitchen things that should be arriving any day now.

John’s been so caring and considerate, commenting more than a time or two that he knows how difficult it must have been for me to sell off my things and leave my home and family and move here to live with him. He’s done all these things without my asking, suggesting, or mentioning anything about space.

It’s a tremendous gift he’s giving me and I’m not just talking only about a room of my own. I had an awareness the other day as I was making decisions in my head about how I wanted to do certain things. Having never had the opportunity to design a space from the ground up, I realized I was placing limitations on my creativity out of habit as I’ve always had to work within the framework of those who’d gone before me. The more I thought about this, the more I saw a pattern in some of my creative writing…as in too safe and too predictable. So you see, this room of my own, my quiet place for writing fiction has already has given me a bit of the freedom Virginia Woolf spoke of when she wrote about all the circumstances that kept women of her day from being able to tap into their creative voice. Going forward now, I need to remember sometimes the limitations are not those placed on us by outside conditions, but rather the internal ones we create for ourselves.

I’ll be posting updates in the building process weekly and I hope you’ll come back to see the progress.

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Editing Real Life -Deciding What To Keep

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wedding

I was barely back in Cornwall long enough to unpack last week before I was off  to photograph my first UK wedding. I met these two lovely people though another blogging friend Joanne Rendell.  Joanne and Alycia have connections in New York and after communicating with Joanne after her first book was published, she introduced me to Alycia. Alycia and I have loads of things in common including a theatre background, but it is in loving our Englishmen and leaving our U.S. based lives for that love that we find the most similarity.

It was truly an honor to be asked to record the moments of such an important day and my pleasure to be able to do it. Honestly, it was a bit like being in a movie version of a modern day Jane Austin novel. 

The ceremony was one of the very sweetest I’ve ever seen and had some moments so tender that I almost forgot I was there to document the day. I’ve seen brides who were beautiful and grooms who were handsome and happy, but I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed such total joy at the moment they kissed. Even I got a little teary behind my camera.

I’m editing like a mad woman and will probably be doing so for a few more days but I’ll be back with more photos if you’re interested in having a bit of a look as I finish them. Thanks to John’s assistance as my second shooter, we ended up with a total of more than 1800 images. So now the big question is what to keep. How do you decide what makes the cut with your images?

I tend to be pretty ruthless, but there are some here that I’m not sure I want to say goodbye to…not just yet anyway. I’m talking about those which are slightly imperfect, but full of emotion…hmmm, perhaps I’ve just answered my own question. Life is messy and imperfect right…so perhaps keeping an image or two to remind us can be useful now and then.

Thanks to the photoshop skills of my sister Margaret, the image above no longer has a bicycle in the background or a sign in the window. 

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In The Air Again

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dscf8006

I’ve “moved house” as they say here in England so often I feel as if I could almost do it in my sleep. As a child, we moved so many times that I missed a good bit of what was important in school…thank goodness I was a big bookworm or I’m afraid I’d know very little. By the time I was in the ninth grade, I’d been to 10 schools and in one extreme year of elementary school, I occupied a desk in 4 different schools on both the east and west coast. It’s no wonder that I grew up with a fierce case of wanderlust.

At 18, I joined the Army and left home moving after completing basic training to my first duty assignment, a post in Baumholder, Germany. I arrived there with what I could carry in two large suitcases and an over stuffed military duffel bag. The rest of my childhood things stayed in Georgia with my family so deciding what to pack was not too difficult. These last few months have presented a different set of choices with regard to packing and moving… some of which have been more difficult than others.

As I leave to fly back to Atlanta today, it is with a clear goal in mind. During the next few weeks, I’ll be sorting through what’s left of my physical life in Georgia. Ever a saver with too much stuff, I’ve been going through things since early last year when John and first considered the possibility of sharing a life together in Cornwall.

It was during the first bit of sorting and selling that I came up with the name of my blog…Gifts Of  The Journey. Having surrounded myself so long with things that held memories that I considered part of my story, I never would have believed I would or could consider letting them go. It would have seemed almost as if I were being asked to slice off a finger or a toe. I thought I needed those things to help me balance and connect to what was important. It was during the time when I was selling off the furniture and things that made my house so cozy, that I realized the gifts I was receiving in learning how to let go of the physical stuff in exchange for my deepening connection with John. I had no idea where we would go or really how we would get there, but what I did know was that my house and all the things inside were not what made it a home. Freeing myself from the belongings that I thought had to have, gave me the opportunity to start over in a life I could not have imagined would be so right for me.

I’m back in the air again soon and my next post will find me sorting through books and art and bits of my old life…choosing with the care and heartache my immigrant ancestors must have felt when moving to America so many years ago.  All I can think is…thank goodness, I don’t have to only bring what I can carry.

dscf8011

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Fairy Spirit Or Twist Of Light

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dscn1687

Fairy Spirit Or Twist Of Light?

I live in a place that is a wonderland for the imagination. Stories lie in wait around every turn and each time I step out for a walk or a run I return with a headful of ideas begging to find a bit a permanence and a place to call home. Whether on the moor or walking over the ancient bridges that cross the river that runs through our little village, I see possibilities wherever my eyes stop to rest. I find myself talking to the animals I see along the way and can easily understand how Beatrix Potter could create worlds where bunnies and geese talk back while cats and dogs do the shopping and farm work. These are fertile grounds for story making and the peace of my rural life is perfect for coaxing life into new characters and situations.

I have so much material that I often feel overwhelmed with my choices much like the way one might when standing before a huge buffet table, only instead of choosing between fried chicken southern style or asian sweet and sour , my banquet table is weighed down with ideas. It’s a wonderful problem to have, but for a woman prone ever so slightly towards being easily distracted…too many choices can be troublesome. So the ideas tend to pile up, waiting in a long queue for their moment with some moments taking longer to arrive than others. If I forget to write it all down…the story can disappear, but sometimes there is evidence, a lasting trigger with an image of mine to remind me.

Such was the case with a walk in Scotland on the Isle of Skye at sunset a few years ago. Day or night, the sky there is always stunning and I crawled over a thorny patch to capture this image lit by the setting sun. Skye has long been a magical place for me and seeing what looked like a bit of a fairy spirit captured in the lens of my camera created  more of a feeling of confirmation than surprise.  I have a series of these taken from different angles and the image is the same …twist of light or fairy spirit…you choose. I’d love to hear your thoughts…

 

(My lens was clean…in case you’re wondering…with no smudges or dust)

 

 

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A Ladybug Love Story

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Jersey Ladybug Or (Ladybird)

Jersey Ladybug Or (Ladybird)

In England many things have different names than what I’ve grown up with in America. Here, ladybugs are called ladybirds. Farmers and gardeners love them because they eat up the aphids that threaten the plants they labor to raise, but ladybugs have a different reason for being special to me.

If you’ve read any of my writings at my old blog you may remember my friend Marty who I wrote about here.  He was an important teacher for me in many ways. In fact, I would have to say that much of what I learned from talks with him such as why he made certain decisions in his own life, had a great influence on some key decisions I’ve made in my own.

Marty died of melanoma while we were next door neighbors and his decline was difficult to watch. He impressed me with his wisdom in the way that he lived and without knowing, he left a last lesson for me after his death. A short time after he died, I was talking with David, who had been his life partner for 14 years, about finding love. David told me a story that Marty had told to him when they were discussing David’s future life without Marty. David is one of the kindest, sweetest, souls you can imagine and Marty was worried someone might try to take advantage of him later when he was alone with his grief. Marty spoke of his concerns that his status as a physician might bring out those less interested in David and more interested in his position in the community.

So it was in a way that was so uniquely Marty, he told David the ladybug story that David later told me when we talked of how love finds us.  As I remember it, but perhaps not exactly as was told, Marty said words to this effect, ” When the day is beautiful and the weather too perfect for words, you decide to go on a hunt for a ladybug. So you take yourself to your favorite meadow and search and search everywhere looking for the tiny red and black creatures. You look high and low even bringing out a magnifying glass as you try as hard as you can to spot the tiny winged bugs that contrast so brightly with the green of new leaves and grasses.

When you’ve worn yourself out with a slightly desperate search for your ladybug, you stop to rest, unrolling the quilt you dropped in the grassy meadow a few hours earlier and you sit and enjoy the light breeze that keeps the day from being too hot. Feeling thirsty from your labors, you open a bottle of your favorite wine and take out a little package of cheese and crackers and you drink and eat until you feel quite satisfied. Listening to the soft hum of the insects buzzing around you, you begin to feel sleepy as the sun warms your quilt and the wine soothes your busy thoughts to a calmer, slower pace.  Lying back on the quilt you close your eyes and you sleep, a peaceful, restful sleep with dreams you can’t quite remember. Waking slowly from your summer dreams, you notice your hand lying on the worn patchwork fabric of your grandmother’s quilt and on your hand, sitting very still, you see a tiny red ladybug covered in spots.”  

I don’t think I need to explain the moral of his story…that real love comes to us only when we are ready inside and not when we search for it with the desperation of the hunt… for the ladybug or for love.

Marty Thompson - Embracing Every Moment!

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From A Distance

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dscn2877

Machu Picchu - Morning Light

My tendency in photography as well as life has been to get in close to what is in front of me. I am generally more interested in what is under the surface than the obvious. I like the intimacy of sharing and hearing a snippet of a story will almost always make me want to hear more. With my photography, I have been drawn for years to the details as well, believing I think that on some level getting in close was requirement for communicating the emotion of the image.

Living in a space now with so much wide open sky and so few people has had an effect on my perspective, although on reflection I can see it’s been happening for quite some time. As far back as my first visit to Scotland in 2003, I began to pull back taking in a larger view than before. By the time I saw the sun rise over me in Machu Picchu in 2005, my attraction and need for big sky and wide open spaces was becoming obvious in my photography and my life. While my first tendency is to zoom in tight to see what the people in the photograph are doing, sitting with this image reminds me how small I felt that morning and how peaceful it was to observe from a distance.  

Thanks to Stephanie Roberts over at Shutter Sisters for her inspiration this morning.

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Shades Of Grey And In Between

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dscn1929_21

Many things are not as black and white for me as they appear to be for others. Faith, acceptance and unquestioning belief come so easily to some providing a foundation that guides them in all ways. My own thoughts, especially at this time of year when Christians celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ, drift back and forth through non-committal shades of grey. I feel as if I am Thomas reborn at times…I know I’m not alone though and this song captures much of what I feel on this day and most days.

The song’s worth hearing…take a listen, when you have a moment.

Doubting Thomas

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A Tender Hello

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Father & Son Reunion

Father & Son Reunion

In airports, you often see the best and worst of people. Tired, cranky, and sometimes scared, they can be a field of emotional land mines to navigate through as you edge your way past bag drops and security check points. Frequently, it’s the people traveling for business who are at their worst. Believing themselves to be masters of their own universe, they can make life uncomfortable for everyone within hearing range when life changes the plan ever so slightly. I’ve traveled for business in the past and I understand the stress of getting to a distant location where people wait for your presentation. I know what it feels like to sink into believing that a missed flight is a missed opportunity that will be difficult to recover from. Rarely is that the case though. If what you offer is what’s needed, people will still want to hear you no matter when you arrive. 

In the last year, my travel life, business life, and love life have all gone through dramatic changes. Airports look different to me now. Instead of moving at breakneck speed towards departure gates or rental car pickups, I travel for love. Flying these days is about reuniting with family and friends or exploring places I’ve never been before. Since moving to Cornwall to marry my darling Englishman, my life has slowed down to a pace where I can breathe again. More importantly, I can see again. Instead of rushing about with my focus always on the future or getting things done, I have time to see what is in front of me. It is a gift of astronomical proportions and one I don’t take for granted.

It is with these fresh eyes that I captured the image you see above, a father and son reunion at the Atlanta airport taken last March while waiting for John to arrive. Although I was still working ferociously long days through a fog of must do items and endless lists, I was beginning to be able to see more clearly what was happening in the rest of the world. With love filling my own heart, I could pause to recognize it in those around me, even those who were strangers. Like the tender hello of the father to his son, I began to welcome the heart of me, perhaps the best part of me, back home where it belonged.

 

Today’s post was inspired by Karen Walrond’s post over at Shutter Sisters…take a look if you’ve never been before…it’s a good place to look for things you thought you’d lost.