"One of the saddest lines in the world is, 'Oh, come now---be realistic'. The best parts of this world were not fashioned by those who were realistic. They were fashioned by those who dared to look hard at their wishes and gave them horses to ride . . ." - words by Richard Nelson Bolles -
These words stopped me in my track today. I wasn't feeling my best and decided to take a moment for myself. I have a thing for books, I love them, I collect them, I can't resist them really, it's a little bit of an addiction. Although motherhood came with a painful lack of time to sit and read, I have recently started to make a conscious effort to slow-down whenever I can and instead of grabbing my phone to look at my friends latest post on social medias, I grab a book. I love the intuitive process of letting my hand choose the book that I am going to open. I am often surprised at the synchronicity of the words I come to read.
This morning was no exception. My husband and I started off with a bit of a battle between his very realistic mind and my over-dreaming mind. He looks at numbers, facts, harsh reality while I look at the stars, the signs and think of my wildest dreams as if they were our reality. Most times, it turns out to be a good balance for our Life. Other times though, I just don't get him and he wishes I could land back on Earth. We didn't go much further on our discussion, we knew there was no point to go on until I had my first cup of tea.
We both went on with our day. A few hours later I had a chance to grab a book and sit for a minute. The quote above is the very first thing I read and I started belly laughing pretty hard. Synchronicity always seems to be around the corner. I read the quote to my husband and it kind of wrapped up our conversation from earlier...
The quote also made me think about what it is that I am bringing to this island with my Birth-photography work. I remember talking about my vision a couple of years ago, after I had given birth to our girl, to a friend of mine who looked at me as if I was some kind of an alien for wanting to document other people's actual birth..."Gross" is a word that came through his mouth and my vulnerable-self quickly shut her mouth. It seemed that every time I'd mention my desire to focus my photography work towards births, no one would get it or even want to try to understand. I was received with a lot of judgments. So I stopped talking about it for a while but never stopped dreaming about it for this is my nature.
In the meantime, I started looking for my tribe, I knew there had to be one. I didn't know who the leaders in the industry were for I had no idea there was such a thing as a Birth-photography industry. I came late to Instagram and so I didn't know about the work that had started to be done towards normalizing births and empowering birthing women on social medias, I didn't have strong visuals set in mind. Yet there they were. My tribe. Women who got me. Women who would support me. Women who had received their own calling and dared to give their dreams, horses to ride.
I won't lie. It's often doubting. I sometimes wonder if there will be more women reaching out to me. I wonder if their partner will see the value that these photographs or films will hold in the years to come. I wonder if my purpose is clear enough, if my vison is heard. But then I grab a book and hear the message that's there for me and find inspiration to share - my heart wide-open.
