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I love being so tired, and yet so awake that I can almost dream with my eyes open.

I am 26 now. Hello.

It's been just over one week since my birthday and it still feels so very, very weird to say that.

'Oh, hi, I'm Natalie. I'm 26 and my life is crazy.' 

This is what 26 currently looks like from over here:

That's right, 26 means Tupac, lots of black leather, gold studs, coffee, cigarettes and photography. I dont know if I feel relevant with the times or just plain strange. Whatever it is, I like it. I feel me-er, as though I'm finally coming into my own personality, or rather, showing my personality for once. Oh look, this has turned into a coming of age tale! People, grab your lawn chairs and popcorn because this is going to be fabulouuus. 

26 also means that I'm still an Army wife, still a student, and definitely still a mom to the coolest kids I know. Not many things have changed other than that I am farther through school than I was 6 months ago, and I am slowly (read: molasses) getting better at my favorite hobby. The upgrade from the Nikon D3000 with 18-55mm to the D7000 with 35mm 1.8g has been wondrous. I feel like I'm really getting into it more than ever and nothing feels quite as refreshing. Sitting down to edit has become a full-blown crackfest for me during which I squeal and gasp and wring my hands until it's complete. Can't get enough. 

Where is this even going? 

I dont know, it's nearly 2am and I'm required to be up at the dawn of whenever my kids decide tomorrow. Writing has been on the slow side for the past, I don't know, eleventeen months due to school, stress, anxiety, stress, school, rinse, repeat, blah, blah, wakka wakka. JUst as with photography, I have a very simple on/off switch for writing that compells me to either verbal vomit spontaneously for hours or, oppositely, remain quiet on the western word front for months at a time. I wish I had a more viable excuse, or any excuse at all, really, but truthfully I just dont write the way I did as a teenager (see: time constraints). It simply isnt enough. I need to will myself to write more, if only here and if only for the express purpose of releasing my thoughts onto virtual paper. As with most people who have even the smallest of passions for writing, I find the practice to be somewhat therapuetic. I'm a ball of anxious mess at my core, and writing down what I feel somehow brings me off that manic high and back into practical thought and function. It also works to embarass the hell out of me in the future (I sense a foreshadow here somewhere). But yes, write more, self, please. 

As if this hasn't rambled far enough into the territory of "are you kidding me, this is a blog post?" I'd like to discuss my adorable creature, Scouty, and her upcoming fourth birthday. Yes, FOURTH. F-O-U-R-T-Oh fuck it. I can't believe 1) that she has been in existence for this long and 2) That I have been a mother for this long. All I can say to that is what. the. hell. Also, please stop it right now before my head/heart explodes into nothing. Scout growing older means I have to face all of those deep-down fears that every daughter-having parent has. I am knee-fucking-deep in princessland over here and I am about to lose my mind. The practical side of me says, "It's just a phase, lady" and the feminist in me shouts indignantly, "Burn the Barbies! Rip apart the dresses! Ban the television!" In other words, I have no idea what I'm doing and where is the current baby-guru elect on this shit? 

Back to birthdays. I am waxing rhapsodic lately about my little lady and feel overcome with emotion as we approach the looming unicorn-themed birthday party. Girl has a penchant for making everything magical, so the theme fits. Needless to say, my inner 6 year old is screaming in joy as I browse Etsy for party decor. My inner-26 year old is weeping because my once chubby, whispy-haired little baby is now a full-fledged pre-K with flowing brown locks and a preschool boyfriend named Keegan. She loves princesses, Minnie Mouse, glitter and the requisite favorite girly colors. If I ask her to wear a purple plaid button-up shirt she wil announce to me, in no uncertain terms, that she looks like a boy. Basically, here is my nightmare, please send help. But, even though she wages war against my feminist ideal, she is still ridiculously fabulous to be around and makes me happy every day, no exceptions. Things she has said lately that made me die a little inside: "On your honor, I promise we watch Brave tomorrow.", "I'm nervous about Keegan. He makes me shy." "I love Jasper. He was a small baby and now he is my big baby. Can I sing him me-shine?" "What does Hanukkah look like?" and a million more things that only as a mother do I find adorable. 

In other words, this blog post was mainly a way to say "Hey internet, I'm still alive" and also that I'm crazy about one particular four year old named Scout. The end. More soon.

December 01st, 2012 / 01:20 am / Notes / No Comments /

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Life captured.

 

 

"I never question what to do, it tells me what to do. The photographs make themselves with my help."

-Ruth Bernhard

Sometimes I dont take photographs. I think there is this popular opinion that anyone who has a rather obsessive hobby, such as painting, sculpting, drawing or photography, is always engaged with it. I'm the same with photography as I am with writing, I only engage in it when I'm struck by what I call "creative energy." Sounds weird, but it's the only way I know how to explain the feeling- a magnetic, must-do, cant-think, energy. When it hits me, I pick up my camera and magic happens. Just as Ruth said, my camera feels more like a porthole I'm looking through, catching glimpses of the world as they are forced by me. I can't photograph with honesty and intention when I dont have that thrill. 

Here's a pretty obvious fact: I dont set-up 99% of the photos I take.

It stuns me that this notion is uncommon amongst photographers today. Almost everything I see from other photographers (whether they be hobbyists or professionals) is staged in some way. I dont understand it, and yet, I do. The urge to set things up just-so and to photograph them hits me sometimes, but it's rare. The more and more I take photos, the more I've come to realize that my preferred "style" (if you can call it that) is editorial. I want to capture the genuine, the truly authentic, moments of this life. The rest is waste to me. Self-portraits are the only area where I sway from this ideology, and I'm comfortable with that. I'd say it's difficult, if not completely impossible, to take a completely spontaneous self-portrait that captures an emotion in progress. But everything else? Give me real. Give me the kids running around wearing monkey suits, or throwing tantrums, or screaming and smiling and living. I dont care if the photos are blurry, I dont care if they're poorly composed, so long as the mood, the feeling of that moment, is captured. I will advocate this form of photography to anyone who picks up a camera, because truly, when you look back on the photos you take now, do you truly think you're going to have the fondest feelings for the sit-down, dress-up portraits taken at the local mall? Doubtful. Instead, you're going to smile, laugh, cry, and reminisce over those photos that captured your life in all of it's wild, beautiful and magical moments. And, if you aren't going to capture them now, then when? 

June 03rd, 2012 / 12:48 am / Jasper, Photography, Scout, Thoughts / No Comments /

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A post about not posting.

So, what's been going on with me? Well, I've been busy. Is that even an appropriate word? I dont know. Everyone's busy.

Over the past few months, everything within my house has basically self-imploded or given up on life. It's like a mass suicide al a Jonestown and no one is sharing the kool-aid. I'm trying not to be pissed off or stressed out, but holy hell is it annoying when everything falls apart week after week. Let's discuss.

First, the garbage disposal went. It simply grinded to a halt and stopped functioning. Went to look under the cabinet to repair it and boom goes the dynamite. We discovered that the entire cabinet under our lovely farmhouse sink is essentially rotting away from water damage that was caused by a slow leak in one of the tubes from the disposal. To boot, the sink is barely being held up by one flimsy screw and a piece of wood that's been haphazardly rigged to support the ten-ton weight of that behemoth beauty.

Next up, the plants in the front yard began to die. We're in Arizona, and most plants out here are fairly hardy to the dry heat. When stuff begins to die off suddenly, it's usually too late to intervene. We've lost essentially all of the landscaping in the front yard (save for a few hideously ugly, and dreadful to remove bouganvilleas) because surprise! the entire sprinkler system out there has mysteriously stopped working. 

Shall we continue? Cool, because clearly you arent bored enough already.

Next up, was the garage door. We returned home from a fabulous vacation with sunburns and smiles only to discover that our garage door had been dented and was inoperable. $600 to replace that sucker because, of course, the previous owners had installed a garage door that was far too heavy for the garage door opener. Instead of being able to replace just the bottom two panels, the entire thing had to go.

Two days later, my husband's car threw up both middle fingers and said "Peace, bitches!" Or something similar, I imagine. $700 to get it to a point where it was safe to drive. A few days later a random stranger decided to pull up into our driveway, nail the entire left side of the car and drive off. Huge dent, long scratch, no good. This happened just after we had made the decision to trade it in for a more reliable vehicle. Hurp durp.

Up next, we have the water heater, which greeted us with a gushing stream of water and a flooded garage. The timing could not have been more perfect. 10:30 pm? Check. Two sleeping children in my car? Check! Extra money in bank account bled dry from repairing previously mentioned catastrophes? DOUBLE CHECK, WHAT WHAT. Emergency plumbing services called out, days without any water for showering, and a $900 estimate later, we were spent.  My generous parents arrived with superhero capes blowing gloriously in the wind, and replaced and installed the whole she-bang for us. I owe them mass quantities of beer and steak.

Water heater replaced, garage door replaced, car sold and we still had a chance of going to Disneyland this year! What can I say? We were living the h-i-g-h life.

Until.

Until we arrived home from our Mother's Day celebration only to discover that, "Hey, that's the second time an unopened gallon of milk has gone rancid this weekend.. and HOLY CRAP ALL OF THE ICE CREAM IS MELTED AND THE CHEESE IS WARM AND WHAT THE HELL IS THAT GROWING ON THE STRAWBERRIES?" Apparently, after taking advice from all of the other major appliances, our fridge decided it was time to join the fiesta of "I'd rather just sit here and die, thanks." Ice coolers were loaded, hundreds? thousands? of bags of ice were purchased, and many rotten food items were trashed. Fortunately, this little puppy decided to not give up completely and instead taught us a lesson in "Oh, right, defrosting the fridge every once in a while might be helpful." Gotcha, fridge. Thanks for that.

So there ya go. There's my pathetic story of how I cant blog because my house is going on strike. 

Hopefully the unions will be pleased and agree to a compromise. I will work to better maintain working conditions and in return, I expect to be rewarded with a few more months of peace… please?

In the meantime, Jasper is walking, Scout has speech therapy, Jared has physical therapy, and I'm starting 3 accelerated classes this month. God save us? 

Also, monkeys, because this post was far too long and lacking anything of value. May my misery be your good fortune! 

May 15th, 2012 / 11:15 am / Notes, Thoughts / No Comments /

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Motherhood.

I can hear the kids playing up in their shared bedroom and I'm torn.

I'm sitting downstairs fighting the urge to go up, scold them for staying up past bedtime, and tuck them back into their respective beds. I want to, but I wont. If I march up there, head swimming with annoyance, I know I'll ruin that memory. Instead of looking back at the times when they would stay up all night, alone in their secret world of childhood and make-believe, they'll simply remember that time, one of many, where Mom came up and yelled. I've been doing so much of that lately: yelling, separating, controlling. I've been selfish, trying to wrest back this person I've only recently discovered is me.

The problem with having kids young is that you're stuck trying to figure them out while you still haven't quite figured out yourself.

Babies having babies, they say. Maybe they were saying it right, maybe I was wrong.

These past few years have been a whirlwind. It's so typical, really. Finding myself in the midst of finding out what it means to be a parent. It's disarming, at best. Suddenly I've become aware of how much I'm not only wanted, but needed, and it is the most terrifying feeling I've experienced. The thought runs through my head constantly: I am responsible for a human. Not just one of them, but two. I made this choice. I must be solely dedicated to their well-being. There is no escape, there is no easy, there is no way to turn back and say maybe we should start over and do it better. I have to be present in every moment, and that is not something I'm good at.

I never could understand why people waited to have children. The wild one in me still doesn't at times. Why spend so much of your life missing the people who will become your life? They argue that you need money, that love isn't all you need, that the romanticized version of a bohemian existence is not truly all that romantic. I didn't want to listen; I didn't want them to be right.

Having children has always been my greatest ambition. I said that if I died, I only hoped to have become a mother first. But now I know that motherhood isn't all. I know now that I still need to do other things before I'm content with leaving, and that list doesn't only include watching Jasper get married and have children, or seeing Scout navigate through her chosen career.

I'm caught in a place that is difficult for me to realize. I'm shell-shocked, awe-struck, by the reality of where I am at twenty-five years old. I am closer to thirty than I am to eighteen, and thirty feels old. Thirty feels like I should have my shit together. Twenty-five feels old, too. Twenty-five feels like a master's degree, possibly a marriage, a stable career, or at least a career choice. Instead I'm standing at twenty-five, surrounded by all of this maturity in circumstance and all of this ignorance in emotion. I still feel eighteen. I still feel like I have all of these options ahead of me, that I can still make mistakes, and that life will be forgiving. And yet, I can also feel that all of these things are wrong. I'm under constant anxiety over the thought that I cant get up and run, that this is where I have to be, that I have to accept this, live this, love this. My life? It's this.

There are so many mixed messages out there about motherhood, but one thing remains the same: you have to be good at it. Apparently it comes naturally, too. And it's the most fulfilling experience of a lifetime. Oh, and it's exhausting, but definitely worth it. I wish someone would have said that even to the most confident of prospective parents, motherhood does not always come naturally or easily. I feel so disjointed in this role. I'm a dreamer, a wild one, but right now I have to learn to be patient and present and selfless. I'm a thinker, a learner, and an over-analyzer, but right now I have to learn to be simple and easy-going. I'm an escapist, a person who is not happy with never-ending sameness, but right now I have to learn how to create ritual, tradition and stability for my children. Most of all, I am a motherless child, and right now I have to learn how to raise the children of a mother. I don't know how to do that; that just doesn't come naturally to me.

There are moments when I can amp myself up, let my mother-bear battle-cry roar out with indignation. "I'll prove you wrong! I know what I'm doing!" And according to the majority opinion, I am doing it right. I do the crafts, I take the photos, I educate them, I monitor their television watching, I carefully select nutritious foods for them to eat, I research the best pediatricians, I do the preschool interviews, I take them to the museums and zoos.

It's never enough.

I cant show them what I want to show them. I cant take them all over the world in my backpack. I cant force them to see the logic in my requests. I cant make them love me if they don't want to.

Becoming a young mother, for me, meant standing face to face with my very controlling nature, and learning that that shit just wont fly. For me right now it's slowly learning that I have to actually model the behaviors I want to see in them, that I cant just magically will these children into well-functioning adults, whatever that means. For me, that's hard. I'd still rather be out traveling the world with wild abandon, sitting in college classrooms absorbing as much information as possible, blasting my stereo at full volume, smoking clove cigarettes and having "intellectual" conversations with people around me.

But I cannot do those things. I'm a mother now, and being a mother means loving so hard it hurts and it scares. It means staying in and losing friends and, sometimes, opportunities. It means worrying and waiting and whispering and wondering. Mostly it means yelling at the top of my lungs because I just want them to actually hear how much I love them, feel how much I want for them, in spite of all that I still want for myself.

 

 

April 09th, 2012 / 08:51 pm / Notes, Thoughts / 1 Comment /

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A little heart and soul.

Hey look, she’s cute.

This girl. Princess Diva Drama Pants.

I swear that when they said three year olds were pure evil incarnate they weren't lying. I've been escaping to the bathroom to cry almost every day because we're on power struggle number 50 and I just dont want to fucking fight over whether or not waffles can be considered "dinner" food. In between those power struggles, though, she's an absolute gem with a heart of gold who melts my brain cells into mush when she tells me "Mom, I love your hair today" or "Mom, you my best friend, right?". Well, of course we are, duh, but if we're going to be best friends I suggest you go grab your own damn ice cream and let me watch this Annie Leibovitz documentary.
 

 

April 06th, 2012 / 10:02 pm / Photography, Scout / No Comments /

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