Unconditional love & acceptance of what is…unless what is, is me.

When I can’t be with myself
or what is,
I turn to repetition.

Why do I listen to the same song over and over and over and over again?

Is it because they are saying something I wish I could?
Is it because it makes me feel something I can’t muster up for myself?
Is it because I’m looking for permission to feel something I haven’t even let myself acknowledge?

Why do I watch the same shows over and over and over again?

Is it because I want to feel comforted and familiar without having to actually participate?
Is it because I feel braced for what I know occurs and I don’t have to feel it fresh and hard?
Is it because I won’t allow space for something I don’t already know?

Why do I prefer to read or write about things instead of doing the thing itself?

If I read about writing instead of actually writing, I can feel like I’m in that world without actually having to be in the work of it.

If I read about others thoughts on philosophy and life, I can breathe the sigh of relief that I’m not as alien as I thought and lessen the compulsion to have to articulate myself.

But are these outs
so I don’t have to go in?

The benefits of choosing this peripheral version of living have a limited shelf life.

As cozy as it is, this repetitive overconsumption of repetition leads to repetitive undercreation.

The temporary relief sedates us.

It paralyzes our ability to actively engage/create/and experience life from our unique version of creative life force.

It becomes an autopilot choice to be a passive bystander rather than an active participant.

Don’t get me wrong- I’m grateful for these temporary comforting answers to discomfort. I know for damn sure that I don’t have the energy to be in constant creation/existential breakthrough explorations. (however somehow I seem to always have the energy for an existential crisis (?) ill put a pin in that one. lol)

But these sophisticated tactics can only serve us for so long.
We always know when we are bullshitting ourselves.

And sometimes I bullshit myself with a camera in hand- my greatest enabler.

Am I more comfortable
seeing rather than feeling?

conceptualizing vs creating

I’ve always felt the pull to be around something instead of in it.
To be further away so I can drink it in all at once.

I love the thousand foot view.

Coming down into the weeds frustrates me.

But I know like I know like I know… those weeds are the life of everything.

And before the weed there is a sprout.

Before the sprout, a germination under the surface.

Before the germination, a seed landed there.

Intentionally/unintentionally/happenstance or fate (take your pick)

We seem to end up in the same place, regardless.

Did someone have a thought that became a plan that led them to plant a seed with their own two hands?

Did a plant that was there before release its own seed before dying?

Did a strong gust of wind blow and bring new life where it’s never lived before?

Whether it was planned or accidental or divine- here we are.
We are here.

What now?

You can look or you can see.
But can you confuse seeing for feeling?

The nuance between the two?
Indistinguishable
and yet
massive/sacred/devastating-
undeniably life altering.

You can see and you can know the significance of something, but do you let it fully enter you?

The boys are eating cherries and it is so beautiful it hurts.
I take the pictures and walk away.

Is that fraction of a second enough?

Is that why I’m more obsessed with deconstructing picture taking than I am taking pictures?

It a desperate act of figuring out how to extend the amount of time I am inside versus outside of the moment itself.

An effort to extend and deepen the:

experience
transmission
absorption
impact

of a given moment…(this is starting to sound like the job of my zoloft lol)

But if I’m honest with myself- most times it feels like bookmarking my deepest emotions for a later date and time.

Sometimes it feels like I am only pressing the shutter so I can look away.

In a previous post, I shared a breakthrough around how I feel like photography has betrayed me. It has enabled me to stay on the outside under the facade of going in.

I’ve gotten so “good” at bookmarking my emotions with photographs that I’ve built up an emotional to do list too long to ever check off.

Naming that has started to help make more sense of the loud restlessness I feel.
In a fit of exasperation I posted a note on substack:

I’ve asked this question before.

I’ve expressed this sentiment in a room filled with people and was met with the loudest crickets you’ve ever heard. (It was so awkward I actually laughed out loud.)

A beautiful stranger responded to this substack note in agreement and I exhaled a breath that has been in my lungs for years.

Sometimes I resent my need to connect with the world in this way.

Why can’t I just be what I am without searching for connection or validation or relation?

A strange inverse of my seeing vs feeling conundrum….

A compulsion to specify and name what I feel in order to find someone else that feels it too.

Can I see it better if someone else feels it too?

Maybe I can be more brave if I know it’s more than myself I’m digging for?
(yikes.)

Or maybe… probably, sadly- I can let it be okay for me if someone else feels it too.

It’s not a defect if it belongs to someone else-
it’s only a defect if it’s mine and mine alone.
(yikes, again.)

Why am I the only exception to my deepest belief?

An unconditional love and acceptance of what is…unless what is, is me.

me being uninspired.
me being distracted.
or me being unproductive.
or me being inarticulate.
or me not being deeply helpful.

what then?

can’t be with that?

turn to repetition.

Listen to the same old songs.
(lots of zach bryan, lana del rey, & keanan o’meara these days)
again. again. again. again. again.

Watch those same old shows.
(the office, seinfeld, gilmore girls)
again. again. again. again. again.

Read the books by others that clearly know more.
(recently mark nepo, rilke, julia cameron, anais nin)
again. again. again. again. again.

Repetition comforts our souls.
Repetition numbs us.
Repetition can also embolden and empower us.

Creatures of habit, no matter how adventurous and bold we may be, it’s human nature to slide down those well grooved neuropathways into whatever version of routine we have.

Emotionally, spiritually, physically.

I almost always feel an undertone of melancholy.
I almost always feel a restless, discontent.
I always sit dreadfully ergonomically incorrect.

These patterns are home,
but not the home I want to live in anymore.

But all my shit is there.
All the furniture.
All of the creature comforts.
Everything I know.

It takes so much energy and effort to move out of this way of being, this way of seeing.

I have always felt a sense of homesickness- always.

I used to attribute it to not enjoying the physical environment I grew up in.

Florida is violently hot and full of swamps and beaches.
My freckles and I did not approve.

When I moved to San Francisco, I finally felt satiated.
It felt good deep in my bones to be in California.

But still-this nagging restlessness followed me to the west coast.

It’s not the place I’m in or the people I’m around.
It’s me.
It’s inside of me.

This weird feeling of perpetual homesickness/restlessness/discontent.

Recently I read a post by Xavier Dagba that felt like a warm and knowing hug in this lifelong unsettling feeling.

"People are rarely stuck because they don’t know what to do.

They very often are because they are too energetically scattered, fragmented and emotionally under resourced to act on what they already know."

- Xavier Dagba


Energetically scattered.
Fragmented.
Emotionally under resourced.

check.
check.
check.

I am always desperately looking for a tangible sense of home.

it feels everywhere and nowhere at the same time

and that is because when I am everywhere, I am nowhere.

The only time that feeling has ever gone away is when I’m creating.

What is happening when I am creating/photographing/writing/making?

Visceral presence.

Energetically focused.
Whole.
Emotional freedom and flow.

I know everything I need to know to move or renovate this house. (i think i prefer the renovate metaphor because I’m not seeking to change and shame myself, I am just ready for new patterns. I’ll keep the bones though. )

I love those old songs and shows and books.

But I want to sing and live and write.

This afternoon I have my first ever singing lesson.

It feels really good to act on something that has no plan or reason other than it is my voice and I have always wanted to use it in this way.

I wonder what energy & personal freedom will be on the other side of acting on behalf of me without incentive. without logic or reason.

What if this is a new pattern?

Maybe I’m knocking down a wall in the living room of the paradigm I’ve been living in my whole life.

It already feels more spacious in here.

INVITATION:

Where does your energy feel boundless and almost always available?
When do you feel inexplicably whole?
When is your heart and soul full and free and light and love?



Use that as your vision board.
Your gps.
Your renovation plans.

I would love to hear what you find.