“I think home is the friends we make along the way.”
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.
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.
Grief
There’s no other cure for grief than grief itself. And it asks us to feel it fully, to feel the complete absence.
David Whyte
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.
Instead 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
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.
Overcomplicated
There are people who use complicated, obscure words to sound smart. And then there are people who use them because it’s the only way to communicate the complexity of their thoughts and ideas.
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
The View From Here
What is it to be seen in the right way? As who you are? A flash of color,
a blur in the crowd,
something spectacular but untouchable.
- – Ada Limón
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.
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.
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.