denial

For some odd reason I kind of love the lessons that I have to keep on learning. They feel like old friends. Or maybe they feel more like a religion I keep reaffirming because they are truths I keep coming to again and again. They are truths, rock strong and fundamental but tend to drift and dissolve in my awareness, such is my ability to focus.

Before the big move to Seattle, I was getting very interested in still life photography. It had to be put on hold for a while but when I was able to get back to it I didn't. Call it momentum, inertia, or an uncanny ability to deny myself what makes me happy without realizing it. But, with the unwinding of this new real estate photography venture, I began to realize that I have many dreams associated with being a photographer that I keep safely tucked below the surface. One of those was to do some real estate or interior design photography. Another is experience with still life photography.

Such denial has tied me in knots. If at every jump in my heart rate (brought on by visions of beautiful objects arranged in beautiful ways lit with beautiful light and captured forever in a photo) is stifled, swallowed, pushed way down, ignored, denied, betrayed and abused, how in the world can I trust myself or expect myself to be able to find my heart's desire when it comes to making art? It's a pretty simple question; a no-duh kind of revelation. I cannot.

Denial may be good for the soul in some religious traditions, but at the alter of beauty and art, denying one's particular path to creative nirvana means no nirvana at all. Or so I have learned (again and again and again) is true for me.