1. Every.single.action is examined, masticated, swallowed, regurgitated, liquefied, vaporized, breathed out, breathed in, poisoned.
2. Every.single.person is loved, hated, obsessed over, known, isolated, overly-familiar, a complete stranger, misunderstands*
3. Every.single.challenge is never challenge enough.
4. Every.single.relationship is never intimate nor safe enough.
5. Every.single.ounce of life cannot pass without analysis and question.
6. Every.single.emotion is simultaneously numbing and painful.
7. Every.single.minute is accompanied by an intense desire to retreat from others but hurt when they feel the need to retreat from you.
8. Every.single.family gathering carries immense weight because we all die...and it will someday no longer be like this. "Must take it all in, don't miss a moment."
9. Every.single.word of both encouragement and criticism takes deep root in a garden long ignored and forgotten.

This, as you may have guessed, is too much pressure on one little life.

In these last few months, I have made very little sense to myself...why would I expect to make sense to anyone else? [and if someone assures me they do know me, why is this such a unpalatable affront?] I don't want to be known so much as left alone. Yet being abandoned in this pursuit is one of my deepest fears.

I am blank, barren, white, unoccupied. I am a me I don't recognize.
The me I want to be is a great artist.
But in my terror, I see
no
art.

~crm

1. Learn to make apple butter, freezer jam, and an entire (or one dish?) thanksgiving meal.
2. Practice, perfect, and learn to follow a pattern in crocheting.
3. Hand write one piece of correspondence per month. (I am going to make a calendar of when and to whom).
4. Take myself on biweekly dates. I like to go for afternoon wine and journaling, meandering in bookstores, walking around my neighborhood, take myself to movies, etc.
5. NOT give up on watercolor.
6. Read a Russian - check.
7. Photos. Take them.

I have been ruminating on No. 7 quite some time these past weeks. I think I have something to say to myself through the eye of a lens. I am overwrought when I see a photo that moves me, and since my hands are ridiculously untrained at recreating [via paint, lead, and ink] the abstractions I see in my head, perhaps instead I can find a voice behind a camera. Cameras do not hide me from moments or steal my experiential joy - they give me safe place from which to really engage...

I was inspired by two photo projects recently. The first was Umberdove's 30 Days of Self . I loved having a daily photo assignment and loved what came of it. Another photo project I came across was introduced to me today via Victoria at SF Girl by the Bay. She sent her readers to a Flickr member, Ky. She has a set in her profile entitled 180 days, and it's a daily shot of herself as a teacher. I ate up this entire set and left feeling inspired to do another photo project.

Since I have discovered that I come alive at night, I think I will do a month - starting in December, of night-owl shots...what I do at night, who I am at night, what I become at night...I hope it will be fun! December nights provide a fantastic backdrop to such a project, so I am excited to embark.

Would you like to join me?

It would be an assignment to take a picture of you during your evenings...sights, sounds, smells, lighting, surroundings of that time. In an effort to capture yourself every evening, I name it "A shot in the dark: December Evenings." I will probably start a flickr photo group, so please do let me know if you are interested, but since it's only mid november, you have some time to ruminate.

I am standing at your screen door with stringy summer hair.
"Can you come out and play?"

~lady whit