eyes wider than before

"Your eyes are wider than before...
so little has changed
but your eyes have seen so much more"
-Scott Matthews

I have no idea why or how but I finally feel like I am the person I was intended to be. The eyes of my heart are wider than before and although so little has changed around me, I see more than I could have imagined about who I am and how much more there is left to see. The view is beautiful, the view is harsh, the view is reality. Tomorrow there will be a different view, hopefully my eyes will continue to widen, continue to let me see who I am as I grow up. The view illumiates my soul and for that reason I find myself with a prayerful heart, that is grateful and humbled beyond belief.

Rolls of film

These two rolls have been waiting on my nightstand, everynight I see them, everynight they go undeveloped. This morning I woke up at 5am, for no reason, I was just done sleeping. After I looked at my watch, I noticed my rolls of film again.

I feel like these rolls. Waiting. Unexposed but there is something there. Ready, but not yet. There are pictures, thoughts, poems, fears, aspirations, love notes, tears, hugs and kisses, ideas, determination and heart that are waiting to be developed.

It takes a trusted person to open a roll of film, to run the right amount of chemicals over it for the right amount of time. I have no idea who will develop this roll of film in this part of my life. I am eager to see the prints but for now I will wait in my canister, knowing only for myself what is inside.

It is...

it is breaking something in order to create a wish


it is letting the colors blend


it is loving the warmth


it is understanding that I don't deserve the blessings I have received


it is a shoreline that we will forever stand at as a family, as cousins, as sisters


it is realizing the simple pleasure of enjoying life one thing at a time


it is feeling beautiful.

It is living life, discovering who I am.

Miles

Mile 1: say hi to a friend, think it is weird to see people I know on runs, but like it at the same time.
Mile 2: "don't give me none of your bad news today"
Mile 3: nano dies
Mile 4: realize there is alot to run from
Mile 5: settled into the flow, want to run for hours
Mile 6: glad I am home.

I wish I could write how many miles I have run in my life. I wish I knew how to name them all. I am glad I don't know how many more are left to go.

beautiful fear

I have to admit that I am full of fear. This is something that should not be admitted or even easy to admitt, yet it is the only thing in me right now. This fear is different than ever before. I am not scared of something that will go away with time, I am scared of something that is extremely close. I am scared of myself.

This is the first time I can actually remember feeling my potential, I can see it like the brightness of dawn and don't know where it will take me or what it will look like. I am scared of my potiental, of letting it fail or turning my back on it, of the power it has if I actually use it. I don't understand what I have the potential to do or be, I just know it is there.

But this fear is beautiful because it is real. It is similar to having fear because you love, fearing the unknown but wanting more. I am full of fear, but at least it is a beautiful fear.

The Maker

Oh, Oh Deep water
Black, and cold like the night
I stand with arms wide open
I've run a twisted mile
I'm a stranger
in the eyes of the Maker

I could not see
for fog in my eyes
I could not feel
for the fear in my life
From across the great divide
In the distance i saw a light
John Baptist
walking to me with the Maker

My body is bent and broken
by long and dangerous sleep
I can work the fields of Abraham
and turn my head away
I'm not a stranger
in the hands of the Maker

Brother John
Have you seen the homeless daughters
standing there
with broken wings
I have seen the flaming swords
there over east of eden
burning in the eyes of the Maker
burning in the eyes of the Maker
burning in the eyes of the Maker
burning in the eyes of the Maker

oh river rise from your sleep....

Lyrics by Daniel Lanois

Today

I am captured by the world,
The grind.
Somewhere between
"what can I get started for you?"
and
"did I send that email?"
my time was sold.
And admist this constant
movement
there is a voice that cries louder than ever before,
"You want to stop, yet desire to go".
I hit a red light,
the weight of the day finally falls on my shoulders.
I actually allow myself to feel it.
Then there is a green,
And green means go.

Auntie Lolo

I became an aunt yesterday! Well an unofficial, no blood but will always send birthday cards with checks in them kinda aunt. The kind of aunt that wears colorful pajamas and builds forts in the living room whenever he comes for a sleepover. The kind of aunt that loves him unconditional. Although I have no actual obligation to show up to birthday parties or graduations, I have a responsibility to give this little boy all the love I can.

Asher was born two months premature, with his intestines outside of his body and his stomach in his chest. He fought for his life before he was given it. To this day, he fights for every breath. In the Neonatal ICU you can hear God say "Now take this breath, now this one." It is not the typical voice of God we hear in the delivery room saying "I have the most amazing life planned for you." When I saw Asher yesterday I was overcome with love, I am not lying when I say that I could spend all day letting him hold me pinkie, saying over and over again, "I simply love you". It is the type of love that makes me want to love others around me more intentionally, more boldly and more freely. I realized how much of a gift my healthy life has been and all I have to offer Asher is my love.

I am so excited to have a little guy in my life like Asher. I told him all about Vashon, how I will teach him to snowboard and about how funny his uncles are. I told him about the inlet, how it is so beautiful, how the mountains hide behind these big green walls and how I will take him on a Beyond trip. I told him how much his parents love him and will do anything for him.

It is an honor to be in Asher's life, to be called an auntie and to love such a strong, beautiful, brave little boy.

What I would say

If I had a little sister, this is what I would tell her.

I never thought I would say it,
But every girl needs to know how her heart breaks.
The loss of a boy, a childhood dream or a close friendship;
She will break.
Men take things apart to put them back together again,
Women prefer to keep things together.
But there is no way to know how the pieces will fall
Until they have hit the ground.
There is no way to learn to mend
Until there is something to mend.
A girl needs to know how her heart breaks
To discover what is inside.
I would never want my friends', my daughters', my mother's heart to break
When they do, I will at least be there to help them find the beauty in the brokeness
And the joy in the pain of mending.


I need to be reminded that love is the most important thing,
That love conquers and rests.
That love is in all of us.
I need to remember that there are thousands of people that do
not get to say goodby to their loved ones.
That love remains even though people are gone.
I need to remember that I am capable of being loved.
I need to cry over the beauty that love has created.
That love is a result of Grace in action.

Mr. Golding

Imagine a man with a thick white mustache, a white hat and navy sweater. Now imagine watching this old man live boldly, love deeply and speak with conviction. Mr. Golding would walk the beach with his beautiful wife, hand in hand, knowing that he was holding treasure. He wrote and published poetry, gathered the beach for his annual boat launching and lavished his grandchildren with his love.

Mr. Golding is the most romantic man I have ever met. He has stolen my heart and has made me believe in old time love; he proved to me gentlemen still exist. I cannot remember the time when I first understood Mr. Golding was rich with life but this realization has become clearer to me even after he has passed.

He placed a plaque on a brick garden wall covered with roses. He knew that by the time he had passed away the roses would be cut back and trimmed and Mrs. Golding would find a love poem written upon her rose wall. His words were about an everlasting love, as if it were a message he sent from Heaven reminding his wife of their love and life together. He loved her so much he wanted to love her even after he was gone.

I have no idea why I want to share this story except it is so beautiful. It reminds me that we need to be loved in a uniquely passionate way. It shows me why I admire people like Mrs. Golding, whose courage to continue on in this beautiful life after having a companion most of her life is humbling. I admire her strength to face the days and nights. I only hope she knows how much she is loved.

Bite

I got bit by a dog yesterday.

Last night as I was going to sleep I was trying to figure out how I could pull the metaphor out of this one and write a blog about it. I got nothing except:

Damn it that hurt, that really f**king hurt.

Point is, when pain happens, it is ok to yell, swear and cry. I am just one of those people that has to let it out.

Coming to Grips With Myself

It comes down to gaiters and heels.

I would love to be able to say I am a mountain woman, that every ounce of me was created to live and breathe mountain air; but as I try to figure who I am and where I want to go, I cannot say that I am a mountain woman. I love the mountains and love being in them, love sitting and looking at them, love going down them and am learning to love going up them. It has been a tremendous task to accept that mountain woman does not belong on my list of characteristics. Giving up trying to fit that characteristic has let me enjoy the mountains for what they are and not for what I can be in them.

I can't lie, I like dressing up and wearing heels. I rarely do it because it has yet to be an accommodating fashion for my life style; but it is fun. The heels represent something more though. I have taken a turn on my road of understanding beauty. If I am trying to come to grips with who I really am, accepting my beauty and all that means must be part of that process. Like any process of self actualization, this one is a continous two steps foward, one step back kinda thing. But every step has been worth it.

My gaiters and heels are just things that I occassionally put on my feet but coming to grips with myself is a daily occurance. Coming to grips with who I am has given me more confidence and freedom than hanging onto who I desire to be.

Why It Matters

Recently I have been spending a large portion of my time with my grandparents. To be honest, I want to get in one more smile, one more tear and one more hug before they die. In this last year it is almost as if they can smell a life beyond this one. Our time together is mostly full of stories; long elaborate stories that are about nothing but mean everything to someone whose life is now counted in memories instead dreams. These stories become part of you, they make you see a world beyond my ignorant generation and for that reason, it matters. It matters to me to sit and listen to Gramp's top ten stories everytime we meet. The bullet wound in my grandpa's arm matters. It matters that Grampa taught me to fish. My Gram's way of cooking meatloaf matters to who I am in a way that I could only appreciate as I realize she might never cook it for us again. It isn't depressing, it is sad, it causes beautiful tears to fall in our family but it also causes us to listen more intently, with more compassion. The beautiful lesson of letting go has taught me that forgiveness reigns and grace can carry the bereaver forever. And for that reason it matters to embrace the deaths that will come but most importantly to embrace the stories that have become me.

mt. aspiration

Little goals or just goals:

Take a picture of someone who is dying.
Buy an orginial photograph by a well known photographer.
Watch the sunrise on the East coast and the sunset on the West coast in the sameday.
Run up a hill and roll down it.
Understand what it means to love fearlessly.
Learn to bake yummy cake.
Cry when I want to.
Carry a backpack on a trail with my bleongings for more than a week.
Smile and laugh more.
Learn about loving and living.
Eat strawberries under a tree.
Create more goals.

These are my aspirations, this is where I am, on mt. aspiration.

Stepping Into the Dark

My hands are still soaked with the smell of developer, stop and fix. For some the smell is awful and hard to live with but for me it is a simple reminder of the joy of being in the darkroom. Yesterday I spent 7 hours printing my favorite photographs and although my feet hurt from standing for so long, I walked away with the joy of living my passion.

The darkroom is saturated with analogies that help me understand photography as a way to experience life. You need to go into the dark in order to produce something. You need time and patience to see anything develop. Printing takes an almost scary amount of perfection, yet no matter how hard you try you can always do better. Moments you thought could not be experienced again come back to life. It is a sanctuary from the loud and bright world.

I am still learning a ton about how to develop and print. I am learning to care about my work enough to spend hours on one image. Being in the dark room is humbling, you throw away more prints than you keep and every time I am in there I question every desire I have had to follow my passion. I think I need a passion that will continue to humble me for the rest of my life; I need to love something that will push me to discover more. I love being in the darkroom and knowing that I am at least trying to create, trying to discover and trying to understand more about this beauty called photography.

Ypomoni

"Our prayer this morning is for those tempted to yield to defeat: PRESS ON
Grant them strength to press on.
When our cherished dreams begin to burst
like the children's bubbles blown to the air,
when people of common sense and clear sight,
when doctors and lawyers, specialists, friends and neighbors all cry:
'A good try, but you're through.'
Lord, give us strength to keep on persisting.
Light the fire to press n.

And when the forces are overwhelming-
as in illness or death-
keep our goal ever before us-
defiantly - past every discouragement,
past every surrender of those we love and respect,
give us the mighty power of God to press on
and on
and on.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen"
-Robert James St. Clair

I am beginning to realize the power of endurance, that God loves us so much He lets us endure. A parent has to let their little guy endure the awkwardness of learning to walk in ski boots, the loneliness of ski bus, they have to let them endure the cold and the falls all for the greater hope that one day they can enjoy the mountain together. Thank you for letting me endure, for giving me this chance to press on, to practice the art of understanding ypomoni.

My Drink

I am addicted to coffee, or maybe just the culture. I think everyone I know has either been a barista, a shareholder in Starbucks or thinks they have their own personal drink that no one else orders. I feel like in Seattle you no longer sit down to a meal to share in conversation, but you sit down to the cup of coffee of your choice. I prefer to share meals, actual meals, not a coffee and a scone. For some reason the concept of coffee just seems to protray a short period of time, rather than a salad, entree and dessert. But for some reason, I still love coffee.

The type of coffee you order also seems to somehow say something about you. You are not going to find a teenager walking into Starbucks and ordering a tall drip with no room. You are also not going to find a corporate business man ordering a grande, half-shot, non-fat, no sugar orange mocha.

My drink is a tall non-fat latte. It pretty muchs says I am boring but it is good. I like them because I don't get tongue tied when I order it, and the plain taste is somehow comforting. But my real point is, we claim identifying marks in order to symbloize we belong. Maybe I am taking this too far, but the other day a barista called my drink as reduced fat instead of non-fat. I didn't respond, that was not my drink. Eventually she told me it was mine and I went on my way with cup in hand, but I laughed to myself and thought "is this really so ingrained in me?" Who really knows, maybe a new culture will come along and sweep us up, but until then, I must admit I am just a member of this culture, loving my drink.

Slow Passion

I am not really sure if passion is a good word to describe what pushes me to wake up every morning and seek more. It is the closest I can get. I have also come to realize that my relationship with my passions, is just that, a relationship. It needs work, communication, fun times, sacrifice and tears. In my relationships I sometimes say "I still love you, but I don't like you right now." That is how I am feeling with my passions. But how do I get through those parts of my life when it is hard to like but love still exists? I try to put my passions right in front of me all the time, I do not let myself forget that I love it.

I put these two pictures up because they represent so much of what drives me. All those photographs tell me that I am capable of capturing moments that are valuable but they also ask for more. I just have to look at them and the desire to grab my camera creeps up and I am off to go shoot. They also represent the power of a passion, what happens when you share it and how someone else can accept it.

My other passion is Mt. Rainier. This has been a harder one to accept, but it has been so persistent, always there and always beautiful. The mountain has been the backdrop for our family conversations out on the deck. It taught my mom that faith is real, it built a bond between my father and grandfather, and someday it will be humble me and my brother as we have been asked to carry our grandpa's ashes to the summit. To me this mountain is more than an addition to the beautiful Northwest, it is a continual reminder that relationships are solid, hard and humbling.

I still have so much to discover about what a passion is and how to follow it, but for now I realize that they are sometimes hard to like, but my love it always there. They need to be in front of me all the time, to remind me that there is a desire in my heart to seek more life. I am slow to understand this relationship but as it grows, I am beginning to see its beauty.

Johnny

So this is Johnny. He is probably the cutest little guy I have ever met and he has also taught me more about being a child of Christ than any other person I have ever met. The family I nannied for adopted Johnny when he was born, and a month or so later there was a custody battle over him. Johnny had to return to his biological parents while the dispute was settled. Johnny eventually returned to his adopted parents just before I started to work for them.

One day when I was with the family, Johnny's (adoptive) parents recieved a phone call from the judge handling the custody battle. The judge called to tell them that Johnny was legally their child and there was no way anyone could take him away from them again. After the phone call was over, the mom and dad came into the living room with tears in their eyes. His dad picked him up and held him close and through his tears said "You are mine, you will always be mine, nothing will ever change that."

If you know me, then you know I started crying too. Infront of me was the most perfect example of Christ saying "Lauren, you are mine, I will never let you go." Johnny squalled with delight as his mother and father hugged him, he was not aware of the significance of that moment, all he knew was that he was loved. Johnny will also have no idea he impacted my life so much but I am so thankful to God that He has given me blessed moments with Johnny.

Blog Thoughts

I have been reading a lot lately. I enjoy reading because it gives me a new perspective, helps me practice empathy and it briefly takes me out of my world and places me in the world of another. When I put a book down, either for the night or at its complication, I notice my thoughts begin to mimic the tone of the writer. I wonder how they would write my thoughts, what words and word order they would use. This is helpful if you are trying to become a better writer because you learn new styles and practice different ways of articulating yourself. It can also be dangerous because you being to think for an audience, you become tied to the way you think and not your actual thoughts.

I know my blog thoughts are for an audience, I don't know who you are but I want you to know my thoughts are real, but they are manicured in some ways. I use spell check, I reread, I rewrite until it sounds right. But hopefully they convey authenticity and I would share them with you if we were having a cup of coffee. I don't believe a blog is a good place for me to share a part of myself that I would not in any other arena. It could become too safe, I would be sharing without being exposed and that is simply not how I want to live my life.

So please know that these thoughts are meant to convey a part of me, they have depth and strength, but also know that you are not the first one to know them. This is not meant to dishonor you in anyway but to simply hold myself accountable. I love writing here and I am honored that you are listening.