Let's Take A Walk

One of the things I’m enjoying the most about my recent move is the walkability of my new neighborhood. My favorite cities all have that in common - you can walk outside your door and find shops, restaurants, cafes, and coffee all within a couple blocks.

Some of my favorite spots in Midtown include The Mill, The Federalist, The Rind, South, and Beast & Bounty (and there’s a West Elm across the street? Yes, please!). I’m exploring new spots like small clothing boutiques, and always love shopping local. Now if we could just revamp our public transportation in Sacramento!

xxo

Closing One (Front) Door...

…and opening another. In February I’ll be moving into a new apartment, and I’m feeling both terrified and excited. For the past ten and a half years I have lived in the same apartment. I moved out at 19 and stayed put.

I love my apartment. It’s where I did a lot of growing up. I have spent countless lonely days and nights here. I have hosted dear friends and new acquaintances. I have had solo dance parties and binge watched plenty of shows. I learned a lot about my own personal design style. I put dozens of holes in the walls hanging up frames, moving them, adding shelves, taking shelves away, trying to use other frames to hide the previous holes and wall anchors. I gained confidence in taking care of tasks like assembling IKEA furniture, using wall anchors for heavy mirrors and antique windows, installing drapes, and painting each room several times. I pride myself of my ability to be self-sufficient.

This home has offered me security - both in feeling safe within the gated complex, and with a terribly cheap rent. In the 10+ years living here, my rent went up a total of $50. Before I moved in my grandma had been living in the complex for a couple years. When I moved in our proximity allowed me to be more involved in her life. I have long appreciated the nights where I would walk across the lawn with a bottle of chilled white wine and into her apartment where she had dinner ready for us. I would ask her questions about her past, her family history, who she really was outside of being my grandma. And although she had moved out and into assisted living early last year, her death this past December has augmented and changed the absence I feel of her.

Midtown is going to be my new home. Through my grandma’s death I will be receiving some money. Over my life she has contributed so much financially - paying for both my undergraduate and graduate degrees, gifting me beautiful jewelry when I graduated each time, and so many other gifts and assistance. I know that using the money she left me to move to midtown would make her happy, because it’s going to make me happy. The morning of the day she fell I met her for breakfast and spent an hour and a half with her eating and showing her my photographs from my first trip abroad. She was so excited for me to go when I first told her, and her appreciation of my stories and photographs made it even better.

I’m excited for a new design challenge. I’m looking forward to walking to the farmer’s market and coffee shops. I’m hopeful that I’ll make new friends and meaningful relationships. I’m thankful for the past decade in an apartment that has sheltered, comforted, and helped me grow. But now is the time to move on and move out.

xxo

San Francisco

From a weekend in San Francisco, January 2019.

Shot on Canon AT 1, 35mm lens, Portra 400.

xxo

On Death and Dying

Several months ago I read Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, by Caitlin Doughty. Caitlin had a fascination with death and what happens after you die, whether it’s embalming, cremation, or other rituals and practices. She worked at a crematory in her early twenties, and her book chronicles those experiences. Caitlin is able to balance both whit and humor with sincerity and respect for the dead (and the living). Until I read her book I didn’t know much about what happens to the physical body after death. I knew that dying was expensive. I knew you could be six feet under or cremated and scattered. But there is so much more to it.

Our American culture is so death avoidant. We usually talk about someone “passing” instead of dying. Even this simple example of semantics has a huge impact on how we feel about death. I used to watch Downton Abbey, and there is a line from the Dowager Countess, played so beautifully by Dame Maggie Smith, that has always stuck with me. Another character is referring to the “loss” of their husbands. The Countess replies that she hasn’t lost her husband, he has died.

On December 20th, 2018 my grandmother died. She fell in her apartment on the evening of December 15th and hit her head. She spent the next five days in the hospital and was unconscious for it all. Those five days were some of the most excruciating of my life. It was incredibly difficult to see my grandmother in the hospital bed, because it didn’t really feel like her. But the thing that troubled me the most was the idea of her being scared right as she was falling. Or, was she conscious on the inside in that hospital bed and afraid of death that was right around the corner? Did she feel all alone? or did she know that we were right there with her?

I come from a Christian family and grew up believing in heaven and hell. At this point in my life I’m not quite sure what I believe in. But I do know that even when I believed in the reassurance of heaven and the afterlife I was terrified of death. Belief in spending eternity with God in heaven is supposed to bring reassurance and hope. For me, the idea of eternity, of things never ending, was a great source of anxiety.

My grandmother is the first person in my life that I have truly loved that has died. I know that I am fortunate in that I am almost thirty and this has just now happened. I also know that as time goes on I’ll be hit with sadness about her death at certain times. I wrote a letter to my grandmother last year while away on retreat. In it I expressed my fear of her dying. She has given me so much in this life far beyond her love and affection. She put me through college, both undergraduate and graduate school. She has supported me financially in a million different ways. She has encouraged me in my adult years as I search for my career path. She comforted me in the best way she knew how when I went through the loss of relationships in my life. I wish that I could give her the gift of watching me get married, having children, and achieving more goals.

My grandmother, wise and practical as she is, set everything up for her death. She wrote out instructions for my mother (an only child and sole caretaker of my grandmother) back in 2010. She paid for her own cremation and dictated where she wanted her ashes scattered. Reading Caitlin’s book, and then watching my mom go through the process of dealing with the body after death was very odd and informative. It was also strangely comforting.

What it all comes back to

Everything comes back to that insecure feeling of not being enough. Not cool enough. Not pretty enough. Not desirable enough. Not enough.

Brene Brown often talks about scarcity, and how we make decisions and do things in life out of fear of not having or being enough. To me, this especially plays out through social media. I feel a need to post content, do cool things, become popular and well liked (literally and figuratively). For the last couple years I’ve done a New Year’s resolution to abstain from something for a year. Two years ago it was clothes shopping. This year it was alcohol. Next year, I’m thinking it’ll be no social media.

This is crazy, for a photographer who hopes to build her clientele, it feels like the exact opposite of what I should be doing. But it also feels so right. I spend so much time on my phone, outside of the present moment. And much of that time is dedicated to checking in on social media, whether it be Instagram, Facebook, or Snapchat. My soul needs the disconnect. My soul needs the disconnect from social media so that I can connect with my self and with real human beings. Starting January 1st, I’ll be social media free. The goal is a year. But this thing is fluid. I’ll leave room for change of heart and goals. But my hope is that it will make me more curious about the things around me, things far away, and things big and small.

I’ll be here posting - likely more than before since I wont have Instagram to post to. And I’ll be on email. So we’ll still be connected. Just not tethered as tightly. And that feels so freeing. Maybe in 2020 I’ll jump back on. For now, I’ll trust that the universe is looking out for me; she’ll bring me the things I need, regardless of my social media activity.

xxo