Beautiful Realities: Lessons Learned Part 1

January has come and gone. It seems so cliche to say "the years fly more quickly the older I get," but it's true. Perhaps it isn't getting older. Perhaps it's just having more to live for. Maybe it's when we're too busy being happy and grateful that time goes the quickest.

If you think that means life is always perfect around this tiny, chaotic, busy little whirlwind of a home, I'm sorry for creating such a misconception. It's not perfect. There are a lot of messes, and a lot of tears. (Mostly the kids. ;)) There are a lot of moments when I clean up messes instead of sitting on the floor playing with my kids. I still haven't mastered going to bed at night, which means I'm usually tired in the morning. Med school is still insane, and my husband is gone more than I'd like. But at the end of the day, life does feel pretty great. Not because it's perfect. Maybe even because it's NOT perfect.

You can read here the post I wrote last month as a kick off for my year long project, and goals for 2014. There is still a big gap between what I know and what I feel, what I want to be and what I am. But here are two things I learned this month from this project:

Capturing beauty is a skill.
   Just like photography, looking for, finding, and capturing beauty in our lives takes practice.

Happiness is learning to see the beauty that exists right in front of us.

  Day 4: My house is a mess, and we are still not unpacked from the vacation we returned from four days before. The laundry is out of control, there are piles everywhere and I am going crazy. I promised myself today I would do whatever it took to restore order to my home. My two year old wakes up with his eyes swollen shut. My to do list is a million miles long, and I throw a small tantrum to myself about how I don't have time for this today. We take a trip to the doctor, both children are cranky, and the one year old won't nap and screams all afternoon. We take a trip to the pharmacy and urgent care for child #2. All waits are over two hours, so I give up and go get pizza for dinner. My children are jumping on kitchen table and smearing pizza all over themselves. My house is bigger mess and seems to be screaming at me that I am a disorganized failure. I snap at my husband... more than once, mostly because I need to be mad at someone. I finally calm down enough to accept that I might not get anything done today, and sit and rock my tired, sick, crying needy children instead. I am so glad I figured that out before they went to bed that night, even if it took me all day to get there. I finally put children down. My messy house is quiet and peaceful. Exhausted, I take a few minutes to unwind at the computer, and upload my photo of the day:

Suddenly my day doesn't seem so bad. Not because it wasn't frustrating and long and exhausting. Not because the chaos isn't a very real feeling. But I realized when I saw this picture, that this was a very real part of my day too. 

I love my lens, for blurring out the mess in the background... because that is just where it should be. A blurred out part of a background to the sunshine that is the foreground. My camera taught me an important lesson that day. Capturing this moment in time changed my perspective, in a very literal way. Suddenly I stopped feeling frustrated, and felt humbled, and grateful instead.

Life is beautiful. Learn to see it through the right lens. THAT'S what I learned this month.

So here is the January 2014 Installment, in all of it's grubby faced, messy housed, imperfect, perfection.

Happy January!! 

Beautiful Realities: The Project

For anyone who follows my photography blog, you will remember the post I made a few weeks ago, entitled "Beautiful Realities."

You can view it here: http://www.pruneorchardphotography.com/blog/2013/12/my-very-own

For those wanting the cliff notes version, this was a self reflection on my own expectations and realizations that beauty can often go unnoticed while we are busy expecting the version we created in our heads.

My mother has always pointed out that I have a written script for my life, and often am frustrated when others don't follow it. This has always irritated me, mostly because it irritates me when she does the same thing. Or maybe because she wasn't following my script. (Which of course reads that everyone in the world thinks I am perfect, flexible, patient, and calm at all times.)

In light of a new year, and new beginnings that I always love and look forward to, I have done a lot of reflecting, specifically about this idea of "beautiful realities." Photography has been a beautiful creative outlet for me, but has also been a powerful learning tool as I have learned to see life through my lens. I am grateful for the ways I am starting to see beauty in imperfections. Having children is the quickest way I know of to learn how perfect tiny little imperfect beings can be. They teach us wisdom. They teach us humility. They frequently teach us patience and endurance. Hopefully they teach us priorities. But mostly they teach us how to find true joy, like we've never known it before.

How do they do this? These endlessly energetic, dependent, needy, exhausting, beautiful little people who we love so much? One way, is the God given instincts we have to care for them above all else, to put their needs first, no matter what. Giving everything we have brings joy, we know that. But I think there is more.

Understanding joy, means understanding and achieving inner peace. Achieving inner peace is a life long goal of mine, and is rooted in my faith in God, which is another essay all together. So for these purposes, suffice it to say, that the inspiration for this year long project stems from my desire to increase peace in my heart as I slow down enough to take an honest look at the incredible beauties in my very own universe.

I believe that finding beauty in my own life means developing the confidence to overcome some of my own insecurities. When sharing photography based on my own home and family, this is huge! Do I have the confidence to share images, even when it portrays me/my family as anything less than perfect? That's a challenge that scares me, so I decided it was a worth while goal.

Insecurities are what cause us to express the idealism that everything in our life is perfect on one extreme, or express the severity of our dire circumstances on the other extreme. Of course the motivations include seeking the praise and admiration of others, vs seeking the pity and sympathy of others, but either way our insecurities feed on our need for recognition and validation. Insecurities are a black hole that cause us to feel the need to prove something of our own uniqueness, find fault in other people, seek attention or approval, or expend our energy convincing others (and ourselves) that we are "enough." Insecurities cause fear: leading us to block out any kind of difficult emotion so that we don't have to deal with difficult realities, both in our present situations, and sometimes more commonly for me: in the possibilities of the future. Fear stemming from insecurities can halt our productivity as we cower instead of moving forward into unknown territories, remain in our comfort zones, or fill our lives with mindless or pointless activities to keep ourselves from facing and overcoming difficult realities. It uses up our imagination and brain power so that we don't have a lot of vision left to see the blessings in our own life, or to find the joy in adding beauty to someone else's.

I don't know a person on earth who doesn't struggle with most or all of these insecurities at some point in time. (Except maybe my dad, (who I have stolen a lot of these ideas from) but that is also another essay all together). Having insecurities is part of being human. Learning to overcome them is part of our necessary progression that represents our entire reason for being.

In that light, this year I want to spend less of my energy worrying about tragedies of the future, and more of my energy watching my children play, and thinking only in the moment. I want to spend less time comparing myself to my friends, and convincing myself that I am just as beautiful/funny/talented/amazing/diverse/patient/smart/righteous/friendly/kind, and spend more time seeing how much I can learn from them. I want to spend less of my energy worried that my husband might not be perfect (and I have to fix all of his imperfections) and spend more energy thinking about what he needs from me. I want to spend less energy convincing everyone that I have a perfect house/perfect children/perfect wardrobe (HAHA)/perfect everything, and spend more energy thinking about someone who might need a friend. I have learned that trying too hard to present ourselves as perfect only inhibits our ability to relate to others. Because, let's be honest, no one wants to open up to the person who they perceive to have no faults/problems/concerns/worries. Those people feel judgmental and distant. And the sad truth is, those people are just overcoming insecurities and fears, just like all the rest of us.

In 2014, I want to learn to trust God a little more, and let go a little more, of all the rest. I want to come a little closer to developing the inner peace that will rid me of having anything to prove. And in so doing, I want to be an instrument in His hands to spread light.

Light is a key component to beautiful photography. While I have an unbelievable amount to learn in this area, I believe the component of photography that separates the professionals from the amateurs, is their understanding and use of light. My photo a day challenge for 2014 will surely improve my understanding and grasp on natural light as seen in a professional's photography. But I hope that as I overcome my own insecurities and move my focus more outward, the inner light will shine brighter through my photographs as well. It's my goal this year to set aside the things I have to prove, and document the reality of our life, so I can remember it just how it was this year. Some days will be easy, and some will be hard. Some we will laugh, and some we will cry (and then hopefully laugh later :)) Some will be stressful. Some will be scary. I want to be more at peace with all of that.

I have always been blessed with a lot of light in my life. There are so many happy moments... so many things to laugh about and be grateful for. Seeing those parts of life has never been my problem. What I think I am starting to realize now, is the same lesson I learned last month taking pictures. Life won't always follow my script. Lighting won't always be perfect. Subjects won't always cooperate. God's plan is different than mine. BUT, it can ALL be beautiful, because it is all an essential part of our journey. This is the journey I want to capture this year. It's all a beautiful part of our individual transformations, from the people we are, to the people God knows we can become.


And just so you know I'm REALLY serious..... here is my day 2 picture: You can imagine me biting my lip as I'm posting this (also making it clear that I'm writing this post instead of cleaning it up). But oh how I love our beautiful little home, and how good it feels to come back after being gone. And look at that BEAUTIFUL warm, Arizona light coming in through my window.

Life is beautiful! Here's to 365 days of 2014!