DEHYDRATION

In the dark morning hours of Sunday, I dreamed that I was at a spa for a spa day. That’s not a far fetch dream. Michael got me a gift card for a spa day for Christmas and I’m all booked for the twenty first. In this dream, I went into a room that was very hospital like and removed my clothes. Then I peed on the floor (because dreams are crazy). My massage therapist then told me to lie down on the massage table face up. She covered me with blankets and then raised the bars up on both sides of the table. The table turned out to be a hospital bed. Then she spent five minutes digging for a vein in my hand so that she could hook me up to a saline IV. The therapist patted my other hand and said “We’re just going to let you rest here for a few minutes and absorb some fluids.” Then she pulled a curtain around me and left me alone.

I woke up thinking that I really needed to drink more water.

I also really hope that this is not how my actual spa day is going to play out.

Oh, it must be that time of year when I have to be reminded to care for myself. I’m not talking about massages and bubble baths kind of care, but the basics. Drink water. Trim nails. Eat a green vegetable. Step away from the cheese. That last on is much harder than it sounds. Months ago I told Michael I wanted a cheese cake for my birthday. He replied “Oh, you want me to make you a cheesecake for your birthday?” and I said “No. I want a cake made out of wheels of cheese for my birthday.” Then Michael said “What?! Is that a thing?!” while googling it and discovering that yes it is a thing. The first layer is already sitting in the fridge because it was on sale at Whole Foods during Christmas. It didn’t hit me until I made our New Year’s Eve charcuterie board that I had asked for an exorbitant amount of cheese.

We will be freezing leftover birthday cheese cake.

I still stand one hundred percent behind my beliefs that making resolutions in January is a waste of time. No one is in a good headspace to start new projects or pick up the old projects. We’re all still recovering from our holiday gatherings and the clean up from those holiday gatherings. I started the New Year with yet another restructuring at work. It’s nothing bad, in fact it is a very good thing, but there’s a lot of new things and questions and weirdness. I’m losing my yoga space and I’m going to have to hunt down a new one. I thought this week, I’d work on consistency in my yoga practice, my walks and going back to torture class. I’m saying no to elevators and I’ve re-introduced a timed twenty minute eating time.

I’ve also had a liter and a half of water today.

I’m not setting any big goals for myself this year because some big goals have already been established for me. A manager of a downtown coffee place posted a request for local artists in a private Facebook group that Michael is part of. He sent her a link to my website and she contacted me last week about a May/June showing for my photography. I’ve been scared to say anything about it because the last time I was supposed to do something like this, the world shut down and I lost my commission. Also, it didn’t really feel legit since I didn’t do anything. She just went online and looked at my photography page. All I had to do was say ‘yes’. I confirmed the dates with the manager yesterday and I’ll go visit the space on Saturday, but I feel like I have all the photos I need to fill the walls. I just need to print and frame them.

I start to get a little bit hyperventally when I think about it, but then I remember all the preparation I’ve already done and how there is not that much left for me to do other than just print the pictures. Maybe if someone came to me and said “hey, we want to publish your book in October.”, I’d finish writing a book. Apparently this how I get things accomplished. I just need to set back and do nothing until someone tells me to do something.

Drink some water. Eat a green vegetable.

IT'S ANOTHER NEW YEAR

As a little kid, I was always under the impression that something magical would happen when the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve, like we would be able to visually see the difference between the old and new year. I would do my best to stay awake. I’ve always been an early to bed, early to rise kind of gal. I don’t even think my parents had to enforce a bedtime, but if they did, New Year’s Eve was the one night they didn’t. Yet, I always ended up falling asleep on my Strawberry Shortcake quilt on the floor in front of the fire. Much like a dog. Dad would nudge me awake just in time for me to watch, with sleep blurred eyes, the chaos of Times Square as the count down to the new year ended on the television. Three, two, one…Happy New Year! and then I would toddle off to bed, dragging my quilt behind me. Eventually I’d reach an age for parties and celebrating the old year moving into the new would be just an excuse for excess food and drinks.

Those years when Chris and I celebrated the New Year at The Annual Flaming Lips New Year’s Eve Freakout where probably the best ones I’ve celebrated.

Despite the state of the celebration, I’ve usually carried with me some sort of hope of better for the New Year. This is something I’ve held onto since I was small. It falls into the whole belief that something magical will happen at midnight. The December I was maybe six or seven, Katrina lost her second child in childbirth. A sadness settled in on my family that holiday season that we probably still carry with us, like layers in the earth’s crust. If you dig down deep, you’ll find a thin layer of blackness representing that year. Christmas was celebrated that year in a very melancholy fashion. I can remember being scolded for plunking out Jingle Bells on the family piano. Christmas Joy was not permissible that year and when New Year’s Eve arrived, I built my nest in front of the fire with a bowl of snacks and a Muppets mug of root beer, determined to stay awake. My little six or seven year old heart new with all its might that moving into the new year would mean happiness for my family.

No and yes. My six or seven year old little heart had yet to understand the concept of time or how my core sample would end up containing many layers of blackness wedged between layers of good earth. My core sample is a kaleidoscope.

I went to bed just after midnight with the idea that I would get up in the morning and get on my yoga mat. I would start the New Year off right and jump into action of immediate change. I had cleaned the house the day before, taken down all of Christmas the day before that, and this left my schedule for New Year’s Day free and open to possibilities. I would use that time to get myself organized mentally for the self work I have planned for 2023. Part of that plan includes renewing my own yoga practice, but I rolled over in my bed and blinked at the sunlight streaming into my window, surprised that I’d slept late enough to have sunlight streaming in my window. I crawled out of bed, fed the animals and showered. I could have rolled out my mat then, but instead I made coffee and cleaned up the few dishes leftover from our night. Then I sat at my desk and cleared out my email inbox while sipping coffee. The day is early; I can still get on my mat at some point.

You see, I still have that hope for better that comes with a New Year. I’ve just lost the belief that the better and change happens immediately. The only thing magical about the transition from the old year to the new year is that we survived another rotation around the sun. Everything else takes time and patience. My goals are marathon goals and I spent all of last year learning new skills for managing my time while being kind to myself. I spent all of last year training for those marathon goals and this is the year to start running at a reasonable pace. So I’m easing in. Slowly. On my own time.

Happy New Year.

NANOBLAHBLAH

I am not participating in National Book Writing Month or National Blog Writing Month. I really haven’t participated in either of those activities in a few years. I’ve also failed to complete a year of a photo a week project since the lockdown. All I had to do was take one photo a week for a whole year. The constraints of a theme, suffocated the project. I will say that I am very impressed with myself for completing a thirty one day photo challenge presented by LaSahwn Wiltz of Everyday Eyecandy. She posts a list of daily prompts for the month of October and every year, I save the list and say “Cindy, you are going to do this.” I last maybe five days.

This year, I did ALL of the days!

Recently, Michael broached the subject of scheduling an art showing for my photos. He reminded me of the one I had had on the books for 2020 when the world stopped and then asked what ‘we’ were going to do about scheduling another. I feel like every time Michael uses the word ‘we’ he really means me. I need to schedule another showing. I was on glass two and half of wine and not in the mood for this discussion. I told him that we could discuss this in 2023 and returned my attention to the game of Two Dots I was currently playing. That’s exactly how I want to finish out this year: tabling all discussion of personal growth and progress until 2023.

I spent an hour today on a website I used to buy a lot of t-shirts from, browsing for Christmas gifts. Then I spent an hour scrolling through photos from the year to see if I had anything decent of the three of us that I could turn into a Christmas Cars. I do not. The point is, I have found really good ways to keep myself occupied that have nothing to do with personal growth or goals set at the beginning of the year. Yes, I realize that we still have (mostly) two months left in this year, but if your life is anything like mine (and I bet it is) your calendar is filling up with social engagements, holiday planning and general fuckaround time. I currently feel like I’m on a runaway train, flying down a hill and I don’t see the point in doing anything other than just holding on.

I probably would have benefitted from participating in NaNoWriMo this year considering I had set a pretty huge book writing goal for myself at the beginning of the year. I can honestly say that I worked on that book regularly, like daily, for about six months. Then I stopped working on it because I got stuck in the same dang place I always seem to get stuck when trying to write this particular story. My inner critic usually pipes in right around now and tells me how much of a failing loser I am. My inner critic is so freaking mean. She/it is just plain awful, or at least she/it used to be just plain awful. Lately, that inner critic has been really quiet and only voiced an opinion recently by whispering “maybe this isn’t the story you’re supposed to be writing.” For a minute, I thought it was a trick, like being invited to the cool girl’s party so they could throw a bucket of cows blood on me. Or something like that…I never really saw that movie. Then my inner critic repeated her/it’s self with a gentle tone of voice and I thought , maybe this isn’t a joke.

My inner critic just gave me useful advice that didn’t even feel critical and was nice about it.

The thing about goals is that they are always present. In fact, I’m not even planning on making new ones for 2023. I’m just going to tweak the ones I have. More than half of my goals are the kind that are completed only if I’m dead. Those tend to be the goals I set to extend my life, like exercise and eating lots of kale. Those other goals are just the sprinkles on my life sundae. I don’t need them. The sundae is still delicious with our without sprinkles.

I’m a sundae in progress.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

After holding my egg up to a candle, I discovered that there wasn’t anything growing inside of it. No puggle. No puggle with dragon wings. Nothing but egg goo. The egg wasn’t stinky and rotten though. So, I cracked it open, scrambled it up with some green onions and cheese, and I ate it. It was delicious. With every bite, I pondered my reasons for even picking up the egg in the first place and what I could learn from the experience of holding onto the egg. It’s a lot of analogy and vagueness for conveying that I am not moving to England.

Instead, I have thrown myself deep into my work and I am focusing on learning some new tricks.

If the egg was a lemon, I’d be making lemonade.

It seems fitting that I am shifting gears and focus right as we move from August into September. The fireflies gave way to the cicadas and crickets a month ago, but in the last two weeks I’ve noticed a stillness in the mornings that doesn’t always exist in the hottest months. Nothing has started buzzing yet and the sun is just barely up when Josephine and I return from our morning walks. The sidewalks are littered with cicada bodies. A few trees are getting patches of yellow leaves. The air smells different. Everyone but me is leaping into it all and saying “hurry up, Fall!”. I’m over here whispering '“not yet.” I’m not ready for the end of summer not just because I’ll miss the weather. I’m not ready because I want more time to marinate in this current mental state.

I want to formulate some new goals and edit my old goals. I haven’t felt this relaxed about making life changes in years. Usually, the thought of even attempting to make a goal made me so anxious that in the end, I would drop it because I am just going to fail anyway. This summer, forty six years into my life, I realized that I can fail at lot of things.

Every failure here branched off into a success for another Evelyn in another life. Most people only have a few significant alternate life paths so close to them. But you, here, you're capable of anything because you're so bad at everything. - Alpha Waymond Wang (Everything Everywhere All at Once)

Maybe I’m not bad at everything, but I don’t I have to be good at everything either. I can have lots and lots of eggs. Some of those eggs just might contain something wonderfully magical. Most of those eggs are going to be filled regular egg goo, but even those eggs will not be a waste.

I know how to make a lot of things with eggs.

SCENE

A mug of coffee nestled between both hands. A dog curled up in her bed next to my chair. I lean back and turn my head toward the window. The yard is coated in a blanket of white, as snow continues to fall. I ponder the idea of leaving the house today to get a jump start on the grocery shopping. It is a sour thought that exhausts me. Cleaning off the car, bundling up, lugging a bag full of groceries up a snow covered walkway. It seems like too much work for the day. I look out the window again and notice that the chickens haven’t even come out of their coop. I knew they wouldn’t and I didn’t even bother to go out and open their pen this morning. Chickens don’t care to free range on snow days. Maybe I will just focus my efforts on laundry today.

Things I could do today instead, but probably won’t: declutter an area of the house, clean, work on a writing project, jumping jacks. I have a friend who posted about not being mentally prepared for snow. She’s in Oklahoma and to be fair, snow used to be a rare occurrence in that state. I commented that I am never mentally prepared for snow and it is a much more common occurrence where I live. I am not prepared even when I know it is coming, even when I have paid attention to the forecast. Michael talked about planning a social distancing pizza party with his Moms in a park for Saturday. I asked him if he was sure about that. I said “It’s supposed to snow.” He called me a liar and went on with his day. It’s fair. I usually tell the weather forecasters that they are liars whenever they tell us that it is going to snow.

I get up from my chair and walk into the kitchen to refill my coffee mug. Then I walk over to the front door and peer out the window. I look at the street which is relatively clear and then look over at my car in the driveway. It is not clear, but covered in snow in a way that makes it look like it is made of snow. A block of snow on wheels. I shake my head in affirmation of skipping the grocery store today. I turn back to my desk and chair and plop down while wrapping a blanket around my shoulders like a grannie. I have stalled. I am idling. I am settling into my boredom. Actually allowing myself to be bored. Ideas sprout from boredom. I’ve been thinking of a business plan, a service. I either teach a chef to take better photos or I take the food pictures for them for their website. The classes will talk about lighting and building a cohesive and attractive online presence. The service would be photographing and editing photos and then providing digital files to be used on a website. What’s that worth? How much would you pay for a class or a service like that? That’s the sticking point. I’m always underselling myself. Even now with the idea, I feel unqualified. So the idea will just sit in the back of my brain until the next moment of boredom rolls around.

I take a sip of my coffee and wince. It has grown cold as I sat there dreaming up ideas. I sigh as I realize that the list of things I should do just continues to grow longer. Then I get up and head to the kitchen to pour out my cold coffee and refill the mug with warm coffee. As I pour the fresh coffee into the mug I realize that this process will be the loop of the day. Drink half the mug. Allow coffee to go cold. Dump. Fill up mug. Repeat. It is a familiar loop. Start writing something. Set it aside. Dump half of it. Start writing something else. Repeat. Come up with a good idea. Set it aside. Tell myself I’m not qualified or I don’t have the time. Return to that idea. Repeat. I sit down at my desk and look at my keyboard. Today, I am determined to finish this one cup of coffee before it gets cold.

Life goals.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

This happens maybe once a year. One of us will buy the wrong dish soap. We will forget that it is the wrong dish soap and bring it home. It is not the wrong dish soap because I’m allergic to it or that it doesn’t clean. It is wrong because it smells like Chris during the last two days of his life. Sunday afternoon, I opened the new bottle of soap and squeezed a dollop onto the sponge . I frowned, but continued washing dishes. Michael walked into the kitchen and I said that we bought the wrong soap again. It’s Ivory. Ivory dish soap smells like dying Chris. You know, just for future reference.

Michael asked if he needed to go get new soap and said 'no’. It just seemed so wasteful. I could get through this bottle of soap, but then Michael sent a text to his ex-wife, Erin. She was picking the Cabbage up later and he asked her if she wanted to swap dish soap. I don’t know what he told her, but I can image that it sounds like a pretty weird request. “Hey, you wanna swap dish soap with us because ours smells like a dying husband?” Erin handed over two bottles of dish soap, a Meyer lemon one and a small bottle of extra strength Dawn. I honestly don’t know if she brought both bottles over because Michael had said the why for swapping or if she didn’t want to give us a half empty bottle of soap. I don’t really care. I’m just grateful they have the kind of relationship where they are still friends enough to request such a thing as swapping dish soap.

I’m also grateful that I do not have to wash dishes while seeing Chris’s face on his last days.

This has been a good but very weird kind of week. Work was crazy with little fires popping up all over the place. Then Michael sent me a text about a truck he was interested in. We’ve been talking about upgrading his truck for years now. The three of us with the dog just don’t fit in his tiny single cab Tacoma. Long camping trips are out of the question because in order for me to drive the truck, we have to move the bench seat. Then people really don’t fit in the cab. Michael has been crunching numbers and looking at our budget. He thinks between now and December are the best times to buy, but he’s always had his heart set on another Tacoma. I think our last camping trip really sold him on the idea of just getting a truck that works for us. He called me Wednesday evening but I missed the call. He was at a dealership, had test driven a truck and was about to walk out with it. If I had returned his call, he would have. Instead, he came home and we talked about it. Then Thursday, I went with him to look at the truck.

Thursday night we came home with a new truck.

It’s probably the fanciest thing either one of has ever driven. My favorite part is the sunroof that opens all the way. I have visions of standing on the seat with my torso sticking out the window and my camera in my hands. Michael says not at highway speeds. I’m all “whatever. I just need goggles.” We did not use the camper as much as we should have this last year, but we have plans to make up for that next year. We have big camping goals. I think the Cabbage qualifies for the Every Kid in a Park pass and we want to take advantage of it. It’s time for the Grand Canyon. I can’t believe I have never been to the Grand Canyon. I haven’t left Chris’s ashes anywhere since D.C. in 2019. I’m desperate to remedy that.

This is has been the strangest, hardest, and at times spectacular, kind of year.

OVERACHIEVER

Home. F is for Fortune Cookie Journal.

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The Smarter Living section of the New York times has an article this week entitled “Start Practicing Your New Year’s Resolutions Now.” I didn’t read it. In fact, I saw that headline, promptly rolled my eyes and said “Oh, Smarter Living, that’s yesterday’s news!” because I’ve been practicing this whole improving my life thing since October. I’m making progress. I feel good. I have all the plans in the world to karate chop my way into 2020. I did have some hyperventilating moments in regards to an art showing that I’m doing in April and May, but I got some really great advice from a few different voices. I’m pretty settled about all of it now. Chilled.

Since October, when I started setting specific goals for the month, I’ve noticed that not only have I spent time focusing on achieving those goals, but I have also spent time focusing on me. This includes genuine self care like putting lotion on my flaky skin instead of just sitting around scratching and trying to claw that skin off. I take allergy medicine before bed so I don’t wake up with a clogged nostril and crusted over eyes. I threw out all of my makeup that has been sitting in my medicine cabinet for more than two years and bought new eyeshadow, eyeliner and mascara. I haven’t used the eyeshadow or eyeliner yet, but I’ve been using my eyelash curler and mascara almost every day. I go to the gym every day but I don’t beat myself up when things happen in my schedule and I have to miss a day. The only goal I set for the month of December is to survive. December is hard enough for a thousand reasons. This year includes more travel than I’m used to, which makes the month seem too short to get the usual things done, let alone added things.

See? Self care. Not putting more stuff on my plate than I can eat.

My mantra now is “I am responsible for my own happiness.” Part of that responsibility requires me to figure out what exactly makes me happy. Setting specific goals and making accomplishments on those goals makes me happy. Making my eyes look pretty makes me happy. Waking up breathing out of both sides of my nose makes me happy. Not waiting around until the New Year to start all of this, makes me happy.

GOALS

First day of Fall

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Every time someone reserves time on one of our microscopes, I receive an email informing me of their reservation. The reservations coming into mailbox this week are for dates in October and it keeps freaking me out. First of all we have a two week rule. You cannot book earlier than two weeks in advance. So I see that reservation and start to yell “Hey! You can’t reserve a microscope two weeks in advance!” and I’m all ready to send out a polite but severe email. Then I pause and go “oh….wait…”

October is next fucking week, people!

What happened to summer? Or spring for that matter? How is it the first of Fall and the leaves are suddenly changing colors and it’s cold enough in the mornings that I have to wear a jacket and gloves on the scooter? What do I even do with my time? I feel like I’m wasting so dang much of it on all the wrong stuff. I’M WASTING MY LIFE! I feel like I’m not tapping into my full potential and so I started looking into some sort of daily planner. I found one that I like that has a digital format that I would be able to use on my iPad. This would allow me to use my Apple pen to write and color in stuff. There’s a place at the beginning of each month to write out your goals for that month. The calendar opens for the week with a section for writing out tasks for home and work. Then at the end of each month, there’s a place to evaluate where you are with your goals. Did you accomplish them? If not, why? What can you try differently? That sort of thing.

There’s a lot of appeal to having a digital planner like this. First of all, I would have it with me all the time. I carry my iPad with me most days. I’ve gotten in the habit of writing out my yoga classes in a notebook app and I use the meditation timer for both class and my own practice. The digital planner/calendar would encourage me to use my electronic device in other ways. Other than the yoga classes, the iPad is basically a glorified e-reader/TV. I could be doing a lot more with it. The downside is that the digital planner is not free. It is a one time fee and not a subscription, but it’s still not free. I am hesitant to purchase something I may not use. Then again, I might see it as I would a gym membership: if I’m paying for it, I will use it. Maybe that’s the real reason for hesitating. If I buy it and use it, then I will actually have a written record of the things I’m doing or not doing. Most importantly, a record of the things I failed to do each month. A record of failure. Do I need to spend $40 on that? Or can I just drag out my high school yearbook or all those 4-H record books and throw a pity party for one? Actually…I can’t do that because I threw all of that stuff away when we cleaned out the old house.

I could spin this argument of for and against into a tangle.

There is no innovation and creativity without failure. Period. - Brene Brown

I’m getting the damn planner. Sure, it might end up as a record of my failures, but it will also be a record of all of my success.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Light and dark

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Every week, at the end of the yoga class that I teach at the Y, I tell my students to take a moment to have gratitude for themselves and their devotion to their mats. I mean, one doesn’t just magically appear in a yoga class. There’s getting dressing in proper bending clothes. Right now, temperatures here are freezing. So there’s multiple layers of coats, gloves and scarves that have to be pulled on. There’s driving to the studio or gym. Then all of those layers have to be pulled off. The truth is, the easy thing to do is to stay home, wrapped up in a blanket with a mug of cream of tomato soup. Except the students in my class did not do the easy thing. There is something to be said about being grateful for making the effort. There is something to be said for taking a moment to pat yourself on the back and say “good job! look at you doing something good for your body!”

I am quick to forget to take a moment to have gratitude for myself.

Recently, I overheard a guy say that his goal for the year was to show up. He said this while in an exercise class and was referring to just showing up to class, but I thought his goal is a really great one in general. What if we all made a goal to just show up? Over the last two weeks, my time in the gym or even on my mat has been sketchy and inconsistent. I have taught my Wednesday night yoga classes and I have attended a class or two. I have gotten on the elliptical once and the bike once, but that has been it. I am used to doing at least thirty minutes of cardio five days a week. Wednesday I jumped right back in where I’d left off and Thursday morning, my body struggled to get out of bed. The alarm went off and I toyed with the idea of staying put. My throat was itchy and I was slightly congested. I could have easily made the argument that I didn’t feel well even though I knew a hot shower and my Neti pot would get rid of the congestion. Then Josephine jumped off the bed and scratched at the door to be let out, so I got up. I got up. I participated. I got back into my routine. I showed up. Then I patted myself on the back and said “good job! look at you doing something good for your body!” But I don’t just want to show up to the gym. I want to show up to life.

I’m going take that guy’s goal to just show up. Then I’m going to take a moment to be grateful to myself for just showing up.

CRASHING TO AN END

Camouflaged snail

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I realize that it is not even December. I mean, it will be December by the end of this week, but right now it is still November. We have a whole month left in this year and I shouldn’t be rushing ahead. Except my brain is totally rushing ahead and I keep thinking about what I want to accomplish next year. I had only one thing that I wanted for this year and that was to complete a project. Any project. I’m thirty something days away from completing my 365 Day photo project that I have been posting daily on Flickr. I am going to complete a project this year. Also, I’ve been saying for years how I need to clean out the basement and pair down. I’ve just stopped putting this down as a resolution because every year I fail miserably at this. I might get one corner cleaned out only to fill it up with crap again. Sure, it took a major basement flood to get this goal accomplished, but by golly, that basement is clean and we have way less stuff.

These accomplishments have inspired me to start thinking about doing stuff. I’m not quite sure what stuff I want to do, but I want to do some stuff.

I think that on the top of my list of things to do next year is to expand my photography skills and build up a portfolio. Maybe even take a class or two. Someone in the office said to me in regards to our California trip that I must have taken a lot of pictures. Really, after sitting down to upload and edit, I did not end up taking very many pictures. I had even debated before the trip whether I should even bother bringing my Nikon with me. In the end, I decided to pack it and then I did make an effort to use it. That first morning at the cabin, I was awake before everyone. I snuck out of the cabin with my camera and went for a walk. The sun was just coming up and the air was crisp. I thought I might try to make my way to Tamales Bay, but it was further away than it looked. I walked the winding road far enough to reach a place where I could at least see the bay and was rewarded with light from the sun peaking up over the hills and filtering through the clouds.

Later on, we all hiked out to Kehoe Beach. I took some pictures there that I am really happy with and that evening I captured a picture of the moon that I’m pretty proud of. The camera stayed in my bag for the rest of the trip because it ended up raining on us for most of Friday. We spent the day in the cabin, playing games and telling stories. I knew that I wanted to stop on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge on our way back to the airport. So I just let the photography slide to the way side in order to just be present in the moment. When Michael pulled our car off the highway and up to a parking space that overlooked the bridge, there was already a line of photographers set up at the look out. Serious photographers. They all had big fancy lenses and tripods. I got out of the car with my dinky Nikon and thought “what the Hell am I doing?” I was a joke. I closed my eyes and took a breath. When I opened them, I looked out at the Golden Gate Bridge, fog rolling in and the sunlight filtering down. We were high enough to be above the fog and the sunlight filtering through that fog made the water sparkle. It was blindingly beautiful.

And I captured it all on my dinky little Nikon.

I want more of this for 2019. I want to feel less intimidated and I want to feel more confident in my own abilities to capture beautiful moments. I want to accept that part of me that is an artist.