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So I've kind of inadvertently ended up following the August Break prompts for the last two days--pattern and window--and it got me thinking I might just give this whole "assignment" thing a try. Today's prompt was orange.
Fun fact: I have read all but one of these books. Feel free to take a guess which one I passed on. (The bottom two are hard to see, so I will help you out by telling you it's neither of those.)
Happy Sunday everyone!
The August Break comes with a list of prompts for each daily photo. It is certainly not required that you follow the prompts--they're just there to help if you need inspiration. I normally don't follow prompts, as my shooting style is more spontaneous. I feel like if I go out into the world looking for something specific, I won't see what wants to be seen.
But a trip to the farmer's market this morning dovetailed nicely with today's prompt: pattern.
A drop of the tropics in Logan Square...
In the introduction to A Dream of Summer: Poems for the Senuous Season, Mary Oliver writes "the heat makes of neighborhood a genuine thing, people are out on lawns or porches; they are exhausted, happy, beneficent, less ambitious than in any other season, and they are full of the beautiful cloudy stuff of dreams." She calls summer a slow season, languid, when nothing in nature is hurried or rushed.
I remember this, vaguely, from childhood. Days that stretched well past bedtime. Fields bursting with wildflowers that bobbed in the breeze. Stacks of library books on my bedroom floor. Lingering in front of the open freezer door after grabbing a popsicle. Bare feet and bicycles. Nothing to do, nowhere to be.
The times, they have a-changed.
Part of this is adulthood, the never-ending flood of responsibility that rushes at the same breakneck pace irrespective of seasonal rhythms. Part of this is living in Chicago, a city that seizes summer like prey, devouring and draining every last drop before the polar vortex returns. Most of this is the fact that I am publishing a book and having a baby at the same time.
Hey, I'm not complaining. Sure, it would be nice to lay in a hammock for three months with some kind of fruity drink and the 8th through 20th Harry Potter books (a girl can dream), but this whirlwind summer will go down in my record books as one of the best. I only wish I had more time (and energy) to write about it.
Cue the August Break! Last year I participated in this fantastic challenge orchestrated by Susannah Conway, and I'm looking forward to doing it again. Between preparing for book and baby, I haven't had a lot of time to shoot, so picking up my camera again will be a welcome outlet. I'm also hoping that words will accompany some of these images. The break starts tomorrow!! Stick with me this August and you'll undoubtedly get a peek at Kelley's Summer 2014: Warp Speed.
For a while there I was an early bloomer. I finished college a year early and got married two weeks after graduation. By the time I was 24, my husband and I had graduate degrees and jobs, owned an apartment, and were getting ready to start a family. I was leaping over your classic American middle-class milestones as if they were the 100 meter hurdles.
Then my brother died by suicide, and it was as if someone dropped Mount Everest onto the track.
I quit my job and got a new one. Then I quit that job and got a new one. Then I quit that job. I still wanted to have children, but my heart was torn open raw and, honestly, I wasn't sure that I should. I wondered whether my own history of depression meant that I wasn't fit to be a parent. I worried my potential offspring would inherit my crooked genes. And, most of all, I feared that my years were numbered, that the same ocean of anguish that had engulfed my brother would pull me under, too.
Meanwhile, all around me, friends and family were still running. My husband and I were invited to weddings and baby showers and housewarmings. Holiday cards turned into piles of smiling family photos and letters detailing activities and adventures. It seemed that every year everyone had racked up a stack of accomplishments. Everyone had gained ground.
I, on the other hand, was still working toward base camp on Everest. This, I realize now, was also an accomplishment. Each day that I got up and faced, each day that I survived, was a victory. It didn't really translate to a holiday card, though. (Merry Christmas! This year we are...still alive.) And the work was so subtle, so slow, that I felt like I hadn't budged an inch. Eventually I realized I wasn't on Mount Everest--I was on Mount Grief. And Mount Grief, it seemed, was made of quicksand.
Still, I continued to look to the future. Surely I would conquer this mountain before I turned 30. After I turned 30. Before I turned 32. 33, at most.
One of my favorite Instagrammers, Jo, says that age loves a filter. I will add that age loves it when you plan to create a series of self-portraits on your birthday but forget until just before bed and end up shooting a single photo in super low light with your iPhone.
Yesterday I turned 35. My book is being published and I am finally expecting a child. In some ways it looks like I've made it over the mountain. In some ways I have, and it's wonderful and I am grateful. But I am also aware of the mounting pressure to reenter the race--and that's something I don't want to do. As painful as it was to feel so removed, so stagnant, there was freedom in not comparing myself to others (when I could actually manage it). There were pleasures and joys in a life that wasn't driven by the usual markers of "success." Part of me wonders what it would be like to blot out that slow-motion decade and dive back into the sprint. Most of me knows that it wouldn't be any easier or make me any happier. And all of me knows that it isn't possible or advisable. Why would I want to work to forget everything I've learned? If anything, I'd like to work harder to remember.
The expectations are still there. The anxiety about lost time is still there. The hope that I will never have to climb a mountain like that again is a nervous bird trapped in my chest.
But when I stop to think about it, I'm a much better climber than a sprinter. And that's not a bad birthday gift. Not at all.
Yikes--I can't believe it's been over a month since I've posted! Thankfully, my good friend Annette Gendler tagged me in the #mywritingprocess Blog Hop. Started by Carol Malone back in February, the hop asks writers a series of questions about their writing process.
where the magic (sort of) happens (sometimes)
1) What are you working on?
Funny you should ask! After nine long years my memoir, A Different Kind of Same, is being published by She Writes Press. It is slated to come out in May 2015. Currently we are working on cover design, proofreading, and preparing my marketing campaign. It's a lot of work, but really exciting. In the meantime, I'm taking the first few cautious steps toward writing some new pieces. It's all very preliminary, and will likely be on the back burner for a few months, but there you go.
2) How does your work differ from others of its genre?
Hmm, this one is tricky. Truthfully, I'm not sure it does. I strive for a balance of informality of lyricism in my writing, but I don't think I'm the only one who does that. I've been told that I manipulate punctuation to an obnoxious degree (especially dashes--love the dashes). But overall I'm not a genre revolutionist. I write memoir because I am drawn to introspection. I think the internal journey is as interesting and relevant (if not more so) than the external one.
3) Why do you write what you do?
Because I have to. Because if I didn't, all the weird, scary, depressing, joyful, luminous, divine stuff rolling around inside and outside my head would sink me. Also because (in spite of the fact that I can't shut up) it takes me a really long time to figure out what I am trying to say.
4) How does your writing process work?
Big picture-wise, I tend to procrastinate until the thoughts and feelings I'm avoiding become so painful, disruptive, and nagging that I can't help but turn around and face them. It took me two years to sit down and start writing A Different Kind of Same. I imagine some more time will pass before I tackle all the crap that has happened since then.
Once I feel ready to start working, I tend to journal on a regular basis and set small goals for myself outside journaling, such as 500 words a day. I give myself weekends off. But one thing I've found is that I need to be really flexible with my process. Life's demands change constantly--lately I've just been squeezing things in where I can when I feel like it. Probably not a recipe for Stephen King-level prolificacy. Good thing I'm not Stephen King.
For the next hop I'm tagging my friend Britta Froehling. Britta is a painter, photographer, writer, and philosopher. Her work and her attitude toward life inspire me. Pop over to her space and say hello!
It's been so long since the weather was good enough for photography. Last week I gave myself a simple assignment: 1) Walk. 2) Shoot. I used my SX-70, my Land Camera, and my digital. Behold: spring in the city.
Today is the tenth anniversary of my brother's suicide.
For the first five years after his death, this season destroyed me. The snow would melt, the leaves would unfurl, and time would tear him away all over again. But eventually the grief softened. Writing the memoir helped immensely. Discovering meditation and Buddhism did, as well. But maybe it would have turned out like this even if I hadn't done a thing. Maybe time itself turns someone's absence into his presence. I don't really know. What I do know is that I miss him a little more keenly every April 30th. I miss knowing the person he would have become. I miss him knowing the person that I am.
This year the ache is especially poignant. After five years, three surgeries, three rounds of IVF, and hundreds of tears, my husband and I are finally expecting our first child. I find myself wondering if I will see my brother them. I wonder what kinds of questions they will ask about their uncle. I wonder how I will answer them.
Ten years after Matt's death, I want to share a a complicated truth: I hate that my brother is dead, but I love who I became because of it. With one action he cracked my foundations, and over the years my walls came tumbling down. Those years were pure terror. I was broken, bleeding, and exposed. Life--every moment of it--hurt.
But that pain led me to compassion. That pain led me to change. That pain forced me to accept myself for who I am, allowed me to find the beauty, joy, and love at the root of all my grief.
I won't say it doesn't still hurt, sometimes. I will say that more often than not I am grateful for the pain.
I love you, little brother. Every motherfucking day.