Reflection

Spotify recently compile my most listened to tracks for 2017, and as I began to listen to it, I felt these waves of emotions and memories flood over me. Each song took me back to a specific feeling or moment. The summer of 2016 through the fall of 2017 was the most trying season of my life. I went through a lot of change in that year or so. I left the family I was a nanny to for almost five years. I lost important relationships in my life. I felt lost in my career goals and lack of a stable job. I was overwhelmed by these experiences, both mentally and emotionally. It took up a lot of space in my head and my heart. 

Music has always been a form of therapy for me. My dad is a musician, and my mom loves music just as much. Because of that, it was always on in the house. The first two notes of The Eagles "I Can't Tell You Why" hit me just as beautifully as the first few notes of John Mayer's "Slow Dancing in a Burning Room." I have playlists that are specific for moods. One for when I need to feel deeply and feel hard; one for when I need to feel angry and vindicated; one for when I want to feel uplifted and encouraged.

Listening to music is sacred. It reminds us that we are not alone. Life experiences can often leave us feeling so alone - alone in our experience, alone in our emotions, alone in our sense of betrayal and hurt. But music reminds us that someone else has been in a similar experience. Someone else has felt a sense of what you feel. Your experience is unique and valid to you. It is yours and yours alone. But we are not alone in the human experiences of love, joy, pain, heartbreak, fear, anxiety, insufficiency...We are more alike than we are unalike. And music reminds me of that. How else would artists connect to so many people? How else could that one note, or that one lyric totally bring you to your knees? 

The Spotify list is pretty long. But here are twenty songs I'd like to share with you:

1. Find You - Charlotte Day
2. Confidently Lost - Sabrina Claudio
3. Lose My Mind - Janine
4. Refuse - Kevin Garrett
5. 5,000,000,000 Years - Whitaker
6. Beautiful Girl - Sara Bareilles
7. It'll Rain Today - Michelle Willis
8. Death & Taxes - Daniel Caesar 
9. Press Harder - GemStones
10. In the Blood - John Mayer
11. Woman - Rosie Lowe
12. Misery Loves Company, Too - Natalie Royal
13. Untitled (How Does It Feel) - D'Angelo
14. Heavy - Birdtalker
15. River - Bishop Briggs
16. Hear Me - Tedeschi Trucks Band
17. Build it Better - Aron Wright
18. Cool Girl - Tove Lo
19. Cruel Intentions - JMSN
20. I'm Better (feat. Lamb) - Missy Elliot

Enjoy.

xxo

Caught on Film

I remember my dad taking a lot of pictures growing up. My parents also did a lot of home videos of my older brother and I when we were younger - at the zoo, birthday parties, even us just eating dinner with the camera set up on a tripod catching the most routine and seemingly mundane of things. Each time I went on a school field trip or overnighter I would get multiple disposable cameras to take with me. I can remember the excitement of going to the drug store to turn them in and waiting a week to get them back. 

My little brother is ten years younger than I am, and I've often thought about the difference in childhoods. By the time he was born well phones were getting more and more common. And the quality of cameras within those progressing smartphones was getting better and better. We keep so many digital images, but rarely get them printed out and displayed. There are boxes on top of boxes of pictures from when my parents were younger and my own childhood. My little brother won't have the same physical mementos to hold in his hands fifty years from now. 

With my growing interest in photography, I've found myself coming back to that original SLR film camera my dad used for so long. I recently got my first role of film developed and love the images. Some are blurry, others are slightly discolored. But I love the simplicity of them, the lesson in patience and denying my need for instant gratification, and the memories that camera holds for me in my life. 

xxo

Two Cute

I love doing family sessions. This sweet family has twin boys who have very different personalities and dispositions. It was fun to watch their differences and the way mom and dad love them both so dearly.

xxo

Gratitude

This past year and a half has been the most challenging of my life - there's no doubt about that. In the last six months though I've started to feel more settled and less anxious. I'm learning my new job. I'm putting myself out into the community around me more and more. I'm finding gratitude in the little things, like the varying colors of leaves outside my apartment. I love the early morning fog. I'm grateful to be stable enough financially now to put a little bit of each paycheck into retirement and my own savings account. 

I'm hopeful that the year ahead will bring more growth and change. As painful as it can be, it also creates the most profound effects. 

xxo

Falling For You

I think I've made the majority of my new friends through Instagram at this point. I love it. I've met so many creative people, doing amazing things in their lives and in our community. I met Kyra initially through Instagram, and then at social meet-ups. We got together the other weekend to shoot and I'm in love with how they turned out. 

xxo