I wrote a week ago that my father was good with a camera, then posted photos whose value to me were as clues to where he might have worked and what his world was like before I was born yet he was married and adult (or maybe not so adult; there was something about him that never quite grew up in "normal" terms, as there is with me).
He took the photos below when I was two or three, and even though my stake is personal, I love them - for the mood and light, the movement, and the unself-consciousness, interiority, tenacity, and adventurousness I see in myself as a little girl.
I'm trying to reground myself in these qualities now. I have to, if I'm to stay true to my gifts, my needs, and my ambition. I feel like my life has come to a deciding place about what the rest is going to be. This isn't morbid thinking or high drama, but the reality that, at 53, if I don't leap I will look back and know I betrayed myself. That's not my nature, but the tug to playing it safe is real. I am single, with not much of a net, so I have only myself to rely on. We're all in that situation, single or not, but in practical terms, the bills have to be paid. The emotional risks are at least as daunting: exposing my interior life, both in my work and in going public with my ambition; not knowing what forms my work might want to take in the world; and being afraid to find out because it may be a lot to want and require me to extend myself in utterly foreign ways. Wanting, not knowing, being imperfect, and asking for help were unsafe in my family, particularly with my father, and so these fears are as essential in me as my tenacity and willingness to take risks.
It's 5.30 am and the sun is coming up over Brooklyn - stripes of brilliant coral, golden orange-yellow, and pinkish-gray; a soft, cottony edge where the sunrise meets the leaving smoky blue night sky. The birds are very chatty; their voices seem to come from everywhere and nowhere. The temperature is exactly right. This weekend is two perfect days of spring, weather not to be taken for granted in New York.
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