Shift in Focus

One of my favorite aspects of photography is how even the tiniest change in focus yields a completely different image. The subject may seem the same at first glance, but then you notice your eye is drawn to different things in the two pictures. The shift in focus becomes significant.

I've noticed such a shift in the focus of my life lately. I knew it was there, that it was happening, but until this week, as I spent time moving and rearranging and purging and organizing my office/studio, I hadn't really been forced to take such close notice of it. It's been alternatingly startling, saddening and freeing, sometimes all at once.

I am a writer by trade. No, you won't find a novel with my name on it at your local bookstore, but for several years, you might have found my name in the byline of various articles in various magazines. I wrote about summer camps for kids, pros and cons of different prepared childbirth philosophies, how to outfit a layette on a budget, how to choose a pet for your child...if it had to do with pregnancy, infants or parenting, I probably wrote about it. I also wrote about writing, and I wrote about faith, and I wrote about how those two can be intertwined. For nearly seven years, I wrote these articles as a freelance writer, and for the time I had to put into it, I enjoyed moderate success. I was good at it, and I enjoyed it, both things a plus when it comes to your job.

But then something happened. Some things happened. A series of unfortunate, frustrating, maddening events took place in my life. The kinds of events that, as they continue for weeks and months and on into years, they rob you of your energy and your drive and your ability to think. So I spent the energy I did have fighting life's fires and dealing with crisis after crisis, having less and less time and inclination to write. I quit looking for new work. I resigned from regular gigs I'd had. Except for the personal journaling I have done since I was eight years old and the blog I had during that time, I quit writing.

At the time, it was a relief. I'd felt tired, burned out. It felt good to not be writing for the first time in a long time, to not have deadlines zooming at me. And so it stayed for the next couple years. I'd think about it from time to time, knowing that if I wanted to, I could go back to it. Sure, it would be hard, almost like starting over in some respects, but the basic skills and love for the craft would still be there. It would always be an option. It just turned out to be an option I never seemed to take.

And so, as I've spent this week cleaning my work space, it came as a surprise to me that I was so easily relegating my writing books to the bottom shelf of the bookcase when they'd always held a place of prominence up at the top. My folders of published articles moved from the top to the bottom file drawer. And the novels? The ones you won't find in Barnes & Noble? They, in their dozen or so folders, moved to the file cabinet that is hidden away in the closet.

At one point during all this movement, I sat down on the floor and started leafing through the myriad pages at hand. I read. I smiled at the words on the pages. Even the fiction. With each folder's contents, I remembered the storylines and how they'd come to me, what was going on in my life when I started writing them, the endings I'd knew they'd each get to if I was able to complete them. And the yearning to finish them pulsed faintly inside of me, yet I knew I'd only be kidding myself if I was to put them on my desk and tell myself I was going to work on them again. My focus for them just isn't there. Same with the articles that whirl through my head. Old habits are hard to break, even if you've ignored them for a long time, because though it has been over two years since I've sent a query to an editor, article ideas still come to me. I catch myself mentally composing a pitch before I realize I'm not going to put it on paper. Not now, anyway. (That's not to say I wouldn't be tickled to have some layouts published, but to me, that's an entirely different ball of wax.)

From my spot on the floor, I looked around and saw what now was the center of my world...the paper and stamps and inks, the bits of metal and ribbon and buttons and beads, the tripods and cameras and photos that come from them. These things have taken over, both my room and my mind. And as much as it is in my nature to want to write articles about the things that I'm most focused on, for now I'm content not to do so. Not now. For now I'm content just to live these things...to take the photos and work with them and create with them...to use the paper and adhesives and embellishments rather than to write about the supplies. It really is such a different way of dealing with life for me. Being and doing rather than writing. But it's ok. Who knows what tomorrow or next week or next year will bring. But for now, it's really ok.

Destruction

"Woe, woe, woe!" called the voice. Woe for my brothers and sisters! Woe for the holy trees! The woods are laid waste. The axe is loosed against us. We are being felled. Great trees are falling, falling, falling."
Voice of the Dryad, Chapter 2, The Last Battle, by C. S. Lewis

Last fall, our neighbor two doors down came over asking about property lines. He was having his land surveyed and they were looking for a point of reference and wanted to know if we knew of any survey pins from when our survey was last done. Apparently there may have been some dispute of the line between his property and the neighbor in between us. My husband talked with him and showed him where the pins were, and I didn't give it much more thought.

Until a couple weeks ago.

We live in a fairly rural, wooded area, and so it is not uncommon to hear the sounds of outdoor machinery from time to time...tractors doing this or that. I noticed, however, that I'd heard the sound of a chain saw a few days in a row and I started to wonder about it. Then one day, as I glanced down the road, I saw a team of horses in the yard of our neighbor two doors down. I knew these to be the horses of an Amish team of men who clear land and buy the wood for whatever their purposes are. I'm not sure how a chain saw fits in to the Amish way of life, but they use the horses to skid the logs to where they need them to be.

Anyway, I assumed our neighbor must be thinning out his property, as some people do from time to time. My husband does the same here and at his parents' house, taking out the dead and diseased trees to open up space for the younger, healthier trees to grow. But two doors down, the chain saw kept going and going until I glanced out my kitchen window earlier this week and, looking across the property of the neighbor between us, I could see a vast open area where there had not been one before. Dozens and dozens of trees had been felled, their limbless trunks lying all over the upper yard of the man's property.

It was devastating to see. He'd cleared virtually the entire lot. I wanted to cry. The wife from the couple who lives between my house and the tree killer property clearer was outside yesterday and we talked briefly. I felt most the need to offer condolences. "I'm so sorry," I said. "I can't believe what they've done next door!" She shrugged helplessly, clearly feeling the loss of what had been a beautiful area destroyed in the name of subdivision and profit. She and her husband work hard to keep their property beautiful and healthy and alive. I've often been jealous of the gorgeous sanctuary they've created that has most of the birds in the area vying for a spot at their feeders. And while there is still a narrow strip of tall, old trees between their property and the next land over, it will do little -- even after the leaves are full and green -- to buffer them from whatever else the man next door plans to do. I feel terrible for them, like they've been violated. I feel like we've been violated, even two doors away from the destruction. I feel the same way for the land. Whatever the reasons, the fact is that it's been ravaged and it will take generations to begin to mitigate the loss that has been incurred.

Some things, I just do not understand.

Little Details

I have several dozen pictures of my dad from his childhood and young adulthood that I've been working to put into a heritage album since last fall. I pulled the project out again this weekend. I made great progress last fall and then stalled on it because I decided I wanted to scan all of the pictures so I'd have access to them in the future should I ever need them again.

I finally did that task this weekend, and as I scanned and then permanently adhered the photos to their layouts, I enjoyed looking at them all again. This picture in particular always makes me smile because my dad told me a story that goes with it...he was close to two years old in the picture, and he explained that his mom made him wear the dress because he was not being very successful with potty training. (Personally, I think expecting a not-yet-two-year-old boy to be potty trained is a bit extreme, especially in the day of outhouses, but he was a first child and it was a different time, I suppose.) I assume the dress was meant to make it easier for him to get the job done instead of having to fuss with pants. He, however, told the story like it was a punishment for continually messing his pants.

Whatever the reason for it, it's cute. And so is the teddy bear he's holding. However, what surprised me as I studied the picture for the umpteenth time this weekend was that I'd never noticed the hand holding him on the porch rail from near his lower back on the left. That hand was presumably my grandmother's...and as I looked closer, I could see a glimpse of the white shirt of her shoulder as she ducked down behind him so as not to be in the picture, and her hip protruding from the behind the side of the porch post at the lower left. I couldn't believe I'd never noticed these details before, and when I saw them, I thought they were just so cool. I suddenly had this connection with my grandmother as a young mother, holding her baby safely so he wouldn't fall off the porch rail while his picture was being taken, keeping herself out of the frame (as we all tend to do at times, don't we?). I love it.

The other thing about so many of these pictures from the early 1900s is that they really were of every day kinds of things. I don't know why I've always had the impression that photos then were mainly posed events. After all, cameras were likely found in far fewer households back then. I know my dad's family was not well-to-do, but there are dozens of pictures of him doing nothing special...just being. Maybe there were more to the pictures at the time, stories that have long since died with my grandmother and my dad. Most of the pictures have only a date, if that. (A few have richer descriptions written in my grandmother's hand, and they are so precious to me! I wonder if she ever imagined how much those pictures and words would mean to someone nearly 100 years later?) But I love studying the photos and imagining the circumstances around them. What a joy.

Hard to Refine

(This post originally appeared on my Creative Spirit blog in Feb. 2006.)

was reading a post over at The Faithful Alligator earlier today in which the question was posed, "Am I who I am?" She (I'll refer to her at tomzgrrl, as that's the name she uses at her blog) reflects on how she continues to "grow, change and redirect" into the person she is. The point being, I believe, that who we are is always going to be an on-going process. Tomzgrrl uses the word "self-actualized" to describe the product of the process. (I'm not crazy about that word, if only because the Maslowian reference induces unpleasant flashbacks from grad school.)

Still, all this seems to fit right in with my current introspective, taking-account-of-my-life state. In a comment, I replied, "I feel...like I'm trying to *refine* my definition of myself as I launch into the next part of my life's journey. I'm trying to take into account who I've been up to now, keep what has been good, get rid of what isn't working and emphasize that which is truly, deep-down important to me -- all while not worrying about what anyone else thinks..."

After I wrote that, I started thinking about what it means to *refine*. Every time I hear that word, the first thought that comes to mind is the refiner's fire, which acts to extract impurities from metals. There are a lot of references of this sort throughout the Bible, comparing God to a refiner's fire, always being our test and purifier. I so love that imagery.

It's not a romantic thing, to be sure...refining takes time and work and patience and the fire has to be very hot to do its job. (Gold, for instance, melts at 1062 degrees C. and must reach 2000 degrees C. to boil.) If all of the impurities are not refined out of the metal, it can compromise it's strength and ability to fulfill its purpose. So much imagery in all of that!

My friend American Heritage defines the verb "refine" in different ways including: to reduce to a pure state; to become free of impurities; to free from coarse, unsuitable or immoral characteristics; to acquire polish or elegance. Wow. So much meaning for such a little word.

After thinking about all of this, I realize that I'm not just seeking to refine my definition of who I am; I am seeking to refine who I am. Not to recreate who I am. I'm not that unhappy with myself to want to be someone else completely. I simply want to be the me I am now, but I want to be her better. (I feel like I should be part of a BASF commercial.)

Lately, I've become aware of so many little ways (and big ways) I could be doing that. It could become overwhelming if I let it. But, like so many things when change is needed, it's probably best to start with one small corner, make a difference there and then move on to the next instead of trying to tackle it all at once. Lather, rinse, repeat. I feel like I've already begun the process. So...what corner of my life to tackle next?