i shot and delivered three weddings and an engagement shoot in july. i drove to canada by myself and got a tattoo. i settled into life atop the water, taking the raft out for sunsets and becoming familiar again with salt lightly caked on my skin. i began to exercise more and felt empowered as my asthma began to surrender to the movement of my body. i am becoming stronger, less afraid, more willing to say what i mean and mean what i say. i am the most confrontational i've ever been, and i'm figuring out if that's really me, or if i'm just learning what it means to be an unapologetic, intelligent womxn wrestling with the tides of culture and expectation. i'm trying to stay humble and kind while standing up for myself (the sun definitely makes that easier). i'm learning that it's okay to be angry and express anger, and i'm learning to forgive and be forgiven. i'm singing in the car daily, rejecting the lies i was told when i was young that said i don't have a voice; i have a voice, and it is beginning to bloom. i recently wrote in my phone notes, i find myself torn between the rhythms of nature and the buzz of the city, and the strange overlap between the two that Seattle finds itself within. i'm stepping into a new season of adulthood this summer, and the skin i'm shedding feels natural and ready.
i'm listening to natasha bedingfield as i type this, the sound of middle school pubescent feminine whimsy. i am slowly, gently returning to and away from myself in the heat of summer sunlight and the cradle of the ocean. thank you, july. you were good to me and those i love. you taught us more about accountability, community, what it means to expand and contract, what it means to communicate and then sit in knowing silence, ask for help, ask for conversation, ask for love when we need it. thank you.
(granted, photos from the 4th of july and the early days of this month were in a previous blog post. i write this blurb mainly for myself. i don't have ocd in many facets of my life, but keeping track of the passing of time is one of the ways it shows up) oh, and one more side note. if you're offended/made uncomfortable by the nude human form or you see naked women and automatically sexualize them, MAYBE don't look at this post and instead ponder upon the way you've been socialized to see breasts and femme folds as inappropriate sexual objects thx (or maybe you're just at work and having a butt pop up on your screen won't fly). peace n respect.
this life is as deeply full and deeply good as it is difficult and frustrating, and i am trying to practice gratitude through it all. thanks for taking a peak into my way of processing and remembering these days.