Author: Becky

California-based photographer and designer, working to cultivate beauty

Follow the Rules

“Why Can’t You be More Like Her?”

My friend’s parents said this to her, speaking of me and my sisters. If they only knew how many spanks it took to break my spirit and get me to comply before I even had words. That wickedness was beaten out of me—the defiance that James Dobson told my parents needed to be crushed. They believed I was born sinful, with a wicked heart. Anything but immediate obedience was punished, usually with a wooden spoon. This was followed by a hug which needed reciprocating, and a small speech about how it’s for my own good and she’s hurting me because she loves me. It turns out that breaking a child’s will at this stage is extremely damaging. I’m only just realizing the extent of this in my 40’s.

By the age of 4, I figured out the safest way to exist in my family was to comply. If I stepped out of line, I would be punished swiftly and harshly. It was not worth it. So for the next 30 years, I did my very best to follow the rules. All of the rules. I was told authority is put there by God. So all authority was to be obeyed, without question or hesitation, unless it was a direct contradiction to the Bible. Nevermind that the Bible contradicts itself. I didn’t question the fact that my parents’ love hurt so much, nor the idea that a loving, all-powerful God would send most of humanity to hell for an eternity of conscious torment. I was shut down inside, just trying to survive. Surviving with a smile, because any emotion other than joy, peace, and gratitude was really frowned upon.

How to destroy a child’s spirit

But it turns out that those years I was getting spanked multiple times a day, between the ages of 1 and 4, are when some really important childhood development is supposed to take place. When I should have been developing a sense of my own autonomy, personal power, self-will, I was instead getting punished for disobeying. When I should have been learning how to develop friendships, compassion, self-acceptance, I was simply trying to follow the rules and keep from getting hurt.

Like my parents, I read Dr. Dobson’s Strong Willed Child when I became a mom. I started out raising my babies the same way. I have such deep regret about this.

Between the Lines

So many conversations we could have had. So many I wanted to have, about so many lines from any Josh Ritter song. Or about when you told me you had a happy childhood and I thought until recently I had too.
But then the words got caught in the back of my throat when I started thinking about how differently I see that now, and how much damage all those spanks did, and how it stops me from speaking. Like when you told me about your first girlfriend, and I thought about telling you about how I was a virgin on my wedding night, after 10 years of dating a man who would later become so emotionally abusive I lost any sense of self worth. It all felt like too much to speak out loud.

I tell myself all the words he surely meant to sayI’ll talk until the conversation doesn’t stay onWait for me, I’m almost readyWhen he meant let go                   -Sara Bareilles

I listen to Between the Lines and grieve the loss of something that might have been so good. How I wished we could have loved each other forever. So perfect it seemed. But I’m only beginning to work through the damage of not being allowed to develop my own autonomy as a young child. My “no” never had any power. Compliance was my only safety.
I have agency. I know this in my head, but not in my bones. Instead, my muscles ache and knot up with chronic pain. My body absorbed all those years of disdain and hatred from the man who slept to my right for 11 years.

11 years later, I’m still trying to work it out.

The words got caught in the back of my throat, and you never really knew me. Never knew what thoughts were in my head. Didn’t know much beyond my dad recently dying. And not being close with my mom. I never told you about the damage they did with their high-control religious fundamentalism, or my abusive marriage, or how much I needed to heal, which could really only be done in a relationship like the one I wanted with you. You hugged me once, so tight and long, I thought I might heal with you. Still, I could not get a single word out.
Instead, we traded physical for emotional intimacy, which was nice but didn’t last. And I think it was an easier substitute for something that could have been so much richer. So now I am here, devastated at the loss of something that could have been, but never was. Like a seed that sprouted, only to get scorched by the sun for lack of water. There wasn’t enough time or intention. I wasn’t brave, strong, or whole enough. You weren’t available or safe enough. What a tragedy.
You filled baskets of rocks as I worked to put a good face on it. We made a good team, I thought. Then it was over. 

Fresh Wound

We walked through the grass finding our way to the spot
Where the grass rectangle lay freshly cut like a wound that hasn’t yet scarred.
I stood there on top of the earth, my dad’s flesh rotting six feet below.
What a strange thing. I didn’t like it.
We propped the dying poinsettias back up near where I suppose his headstone will soon go.
The deer had their way with the flowers and the grass above dad’s buried coffin.
He has returned to the earth, though it’s blocked by that hideous box
And nature is doing its thing now.
As above, so below.
I couldn’t stay long in that place, where the sky touches the lawn.
It was gloomy and cold in all the ways it can be.
Pelican Point shorelineInstead we went to see the waves crash, and the surfers live.
We ate at Barbara’s Fishtrap, then I touched the water and the sand.
I stood at the shore, feeling it.
I feel more there. I feel better there.

Texas Sky in May

Texas Sky in May

Lighting splits the sky

Nearly blinding me for a second

Thunder clapped so loud and close

I jumped

Rain falls and splashes my legs

As I sit near the edge of the overhang

So I can see as much lightning as possible

Without getting struck

Mother Gaia

Doing a belly dance In the sky

It doesn’t seem so angry

Just powerful

Showing how big nature is

And how small we are

And how time passes slow and quick

And how these thunderstorms are nothing new

Not new, but still exhilarating

To someone watching

From under an overhang

From California

Where such things only happen at the start

Of a pandemic

And wild fires

And a new normal

Which never quite becomes so

Lightning

Letting Go

Grieving is the process of letting go of attachment. When it’s done, all that’s left is love.

-Lynne Twist

So, all of life carries a bit of grieving as we let go, as things change.

April

In the morning, I step out my front door

To see the diamonds shining on the lawn

With a cup of joe in my hands

Warming my fingers

I listen to the birds sing their song

Greeting the day in all its glory

Before Grey

I’ve been thinking about Darcie a lot the last couple days. This year will mark 10 years since she passed. I think about her when I sing on stage, which I did on New Year’s Eve. She lived loud. She loved loud. She was full of joy, laughter, and encouragement. She lived with her whole heart. We weren’t too great about keeping in touch the last few years of her life. But losing her felt like losing a sister and I feel her presence a lot more since she’s gone.
Her energy is still here, her memory lives on and encourages me. She inspires me to live more fully, more out loud.
We spent a lot of time together on the court, and also in the van, driving to games. My volleyball teammates often doubled as subjects for my photo projects.
These grainy black and white images which are now sweet memories. These moments captured while waiting…maybe at a gas station or outside a restaurant on the way to or from a game or tournament. How many times did the 11 of us pile into or out of a 12-passenger van? How many hours on the road did we spend singing, talking, laughing? How many hours did we spend in silence, contemplating the game we just played, our wins and losses, our triumphs and failures, every play? I miss being on that team, with those girls. What a gift that time, those bonds and experiences were.



I miss the dark room; the way time passed in 10-minute chunks between the dim, red light of the dark room and back into the white light. I miss the smell of developer, bringing an image into focus on the enlarger. Exposure. Watching it slowly appear on the photo paper in the tub of developer. The dark room was magic.

Dark
Light
Dark
Light
Red
White
Black & white
 

Until I opened the photo lab door to find the sunrise.


Film strips hanging on a line, photo paper hanging out to dry. Images of friends, teammates, roommates, my fellow art majors, all that youth and beauty and fun.


This year will also mark 10 years since the end of my marriage. A relationship I was in for 20 years, which is now less than half of my life. It’s now much less of what defines me as a person. He shows up in those photos too. Young and beautiful and strong. Before all the poison and pain, or at least the effects of this hadn’t shown up yet. We were young and naive and so carefree.
 
Photography was so different then. It was more expensive. A roll of film. One shot at a time. You didn’t know what you had for days after, until you finished the roll and developed the whole thing. Time was cheap, we had so much time back then. These things have now flipped.
 
Contact Sheet…a high-level view of your projects over the course of 24 frames.


Each photo taken was recorded in a journal so you could track the settings, reflect, and improve for next time. Meta data was captured by hand; pen to paper in a composition notebook back then. Image 4 of 24 ISO 400, F11, 1/60. Every failure and success contemplated. Was the sky exposed correctly, or was it blown out? There was no auto-correct, no dimming the highlights while brightening the shadows. Just black and white and grey. Maybe a little dodging and burning. There is always a workaround I guess.Photography notes
I didn’t know much about grey back then. I didn’t realize nearly all of life is there in the grey. Is there even such a thing as black and white? I painted shades of gray once as part of a painting project. We couldn’t use black paint either. Black was made with a mix of ultramarine and brown…burnt sienna maybe…I can’t remember. The assignment was to create a continuum of grey from white to black in 10 steps. I wish I had learned the deeper lesson then. Does black or white even exist? It’s mostly grey.Art majors
 
Just looking through one contact sheet, I see my boyfriend about to surf Newport Beach, flexing shirtless for some photo project, a photo taken from the back seat of the van of my teammates on the way to some game. There’s Sunny’s overalls reflected in the window with L.A. traffic on the other side, the Kent Twitchel mural with a Biola runner on the 10. Rameson, Roberts, Darcie, Yvette, Sunny and Deb, Lyons and Melanie Michelle Denise Smith Johnson (depending on which parent showed up to the game that night). Jed. Nate. Angela. Brian. Emily. Sheryl. Robbie Halleen. College was fun.

Death. Loss. Change. These all help us let go of something and make room for something new, and usually in the end, it helps us grow and brings us to a place where we become more us. It is meant to be.