Blocked.

I have had a mild case of writers block for the last 2 weeks. It was terrible actually. I had chopped ideas and bits of thoughts swirling around in my head. Missing puzzle pieces. I couldn't seem to get anything to fit together and come up with something remotely interesting, witty, or longer than a paragraph. So, I re-analyzed the situation; trying to seek out the source of the "block" rather than the solution to fixing it.






I ditched writing and photographing anything for nearly 4 days. I felt naked without the camera riding shotgun and even more vulnerable without something to write with. I was forced to look through my eyes without the viewfinder and up from the pages upon pages of journal entries I bury myself in. I had no intentions of finding anything interesting or therapeutic from this bit of psychological warfare. The first 24 hours were much more difficult than I expected. And there was no reason I couldn't just give in and go about my life as it was before this "block" occured. No one was keeping me from doing anything except myself. And yet I felt this strange pull towards the idea of having to ackowledge the world for what it is not as it looks. I spend hours framing the world. And that alone brings me more happiness than anything I can think of. Yet from this little experiment I have found that by keeping myself behind the camera I dilute and blur the "realness" of my own world. Such as the people in it. Rare and authentic people. I started to look at them solely through a lens rather than with my eyes. It is one thing to understand the beauty of person through a picture and yet entirely another to know them, to SEE them for who they are because they makeup and create a large part of the world YOU live in. I somehow bypassed the common frailties between myself and the rest of the world. The photography didn't cause this, writing didn't cause this, it was my pure and honest mistake of trying to squeeze every little detail in to my life, my frame, and it is nearly impossible to do everything I want at once. This was proof of that.

So, what did I do with this hiatus of camera and pen?

I went to the beach, to dinner, slept in, read a book, read 3 books, watched the News ( I never watch the News), drank coffee with friends, went on a date... the exact same life I live in with a camera and a journal,but, the challenge was to see if I could live in my world undefined. Stripped.

And while 4 days may seem like a cake walk to live without two things that are material. YOU try picking something that you love to do and quit it cold turkey. I originally found it hard to adjust my mindset. Everything still looked the same, and the world still went on spinning. But it required my attention. My participation. And in 4days I found myself far more appreciative of friendships, relationships, inanimate objects, food, tears, and the overal vibrations of the life I live. I was happy to pick up the camera again, happy to have pen in my back pocket.

Too often I have found myself disconnected to the balance of life and work. My mother has a quote in our living room that says (quite profoundly) "Never get too busy making a living that you forget to make a life". Its been there for years; semi-unnoticed by me, I understood the truth of the words. It wasn't until I kept asking myself "How is it already May?" or " When did THAT happen?!". It is far too easy to get lost amidst work schedules and checking my account balance. Just trying to stay afloat is draining enough and I realized the speed of the life was one I had to catch up with rather than it slowing down for me. Insert deep and meaningful quote and good friends to bring you back to the fun side of reality...

So I'm back. Camera in hand, and extra twist of creativity. It was comforting to know that being away from what I considered comfortable, didn't derail the love I have for photography and desire to capture the truth and what is real in my world. Sometimes its just good to step outside the box.