A Love Letter to Life

For much of my life I haven’t known what to do with my sensitivity to this world. Feeling into the unseen depths of the human condition has been an undeniable part of who I am, as natural as the wind in the trees and as honest as the birds who share their song for all to hear. Yet so often this has left me feeling without a home on this Earth; I spend many moments wondering, wondering,

wondering why I can’t find an answer that fits.

I’ve been called a wanderer. I’ve been told that I drift through rooms, and through life. I’ve often taken this to mean that I have no influence in this world, that my presence does not hold much significance; and that while I am appreciated, I’m just as easily forgotten.

But these are just the clothes I was given.

I think I’ve outgrown them.

I’m beginning to see how life wants to move through me, even if I don’t quite understand it, and even if I still resist it. I’m beginning to realize how vital it is to stay connected to the unseen, how we die whenever we are cut off from that creative mystery

or, at least, how we stop living.

Tethered to that unknowable place from which we all come, I do often feel like a visitor here. It’s easier to forget. But I know that I have to remember, to listen. To resist this would be like the acorn resisting the oak tree, like the caterpillar who denies the butterfly. To remember is inevitable.

and this is the responsibility I feel when I pick up the camera. Maybe purpose is a better word. The camera is a tool through which I can translate the conversation we are all having, whether we know it or not. I don’t seek to freeze time, or to capture a moment; rather, I aim to ask questions, to listen honestly, and to communicate whatever arises. When you see my work, I don’t want you to ponder the meaning of an image, or to study the composition, or to analyze how I exposed the light. I want you to look at my photography and know exactly what it means to you as soon as you see it. And I want you to return to it many years later and find that it means something new, something different. I want laughter to escape from your depths, and for your eyes to overflow— gently first and, then, all at once; and I want you to wonder. I want whatever I bring into this world to serve as the doorway; I want to be a bridge, and an invitation.

There is an endless and open horizon before us. I want you to feel my hand reaching out, and I want you to reach back with the fullness of your nature, without hesitation, to find that we are all dancing together with something so beyond ourselves that we can’t even pretend to understand it.

I used to think that Love was a noun. Now I know it is a conversation. It’s hello and goodbye and everything in between, pain joy fear and faith, passion and sorrow. It’s growth; it’s acceptance. It’s the very conversation from which we are born, the most essential thread in the fabric of our lives;

and may we all write love letters with our lives.