To Wash Away

Water catches me.  It holds me down and hypnotizes me.  I could watch a stream, or a river, or an ocean for hours.  It's cleansing, and freeing, and reminds me to stay present.  Forget the past, no need to worry about the future, just let the water wash over my thoughts and pull them back away from my head.  If it weren't for my husband sleeping upstairs and my dog snoring by my side, I would drive to the ocean right now, just to watch those waves in the moonlight.  But I know this is irrational, and instead I will look through my old photos of water, and try to remember how it feels to be around it.

  

Penny in my Thoughts

A little over five years ago, Brian gave me one of the best surprises of my life on my birthday.  He said he needed a ride to an office in Kansas City, and ended up having me drive him to a hedgehog breeder, who gave us the most precious little baby hog with a white spot on her side.  I instantly fell in love with her, and took my dad's advice to name her Penny.  She meant the world to me.  I remember the first time I left her in my apartment alone to go to class.  I cried all the way up the hill to the KU campus, irrationally afraid that my place would catch on fire and she would be hopeless, alone, and scared.  

But she survived through college, and everyone around me quickly knew of my proud new status as a hedgehog mom.  I did photography and screen printing projects on her, and she was always there for me when I got home from a long day.  I loved setting her loose in my tiny apartment while I worked on stop-motion projects for class, and once captured the most beautiful shot of her running around happily, right into my shot of a pear talking in a cardboard city set (it's a picture I can never find unless I am not thinking about it, and I wish so badly I had it now).  I would curl up with her under my bedsheets, where she would flop her belly onto my belly and snooze, or burrow down to the bottom of my foot and lay next to it as if she was giving it a hug.  Those were always some of my favorite times throughout these past years - snuggling for a few hours under the warmth of the bed covers.  

We moved to Kansas City and in with Brian after school, and we felt like a happy family.  I would give her baths in the kitchen sink.  She hated getting those baths, but she loved snuggling up in a towel afterwards.  I would take her to Lincoln with me sometimes, and carry her around in the front pocket of my hoodie.  I once smuggled her into a diner in my coat, which I knew would upset my mom but I did it anyway, because I didn't want to leave her alone in the car.  Brian gave Penny her first worm in Kansas City, which she immediately loved the taste of, and ate worms up like wriggling spaghetti for the rest of her life.  And it was in Kansas City where we also learned her love for the outdoors - she loved maneuvering through the blades of grass, feeling them brush up along her face.

After Kansas City, I smuggled her into Calgary.  Another one of my favorite pictures is of her snuggling into Brian's shoulder on a bed in a hotel, both looking dead-tired after a 24 hour drive.  She was always a warm body to come home to after a long day of work, and even though Brian didn't want her in the bed or on the couch because she'd sometimes use it as her toilet, I would still sneak her in, because it was worth his frustration and her excrements.  Every second I could spend snuggling up with her was worth it.  And it was in Calgary where I learned to put her into the bathtub when she woke up, where she would go to the bathroom in a mutually appropriate spot.  It was also when we learned that she absolutely loved playing with toilet paper tubes.  She loved rolling them with her nose or getting her head stuck in them and walking around for hours.  

I still remember how elated I was when we crossed back into the states after moving home from Calgary.  I was so nervous they wouldn't let her back in, and spent many nights awake thinking about it.  But those five minutes after we crossed back into the states, with Penny on my lap, are five minutes I wouldn't trade for the world.  We moved back to Kansas City, where she eventually met her new baby brother Boomer, and then to New Jersey.  She got lost on the car trip out to Jersey, and Brian and I were both sure she was a goner, but once we got everything unloaded we found her curled up in the darkest corner she could find under the seat.  And it is here, in New Jersey, where she ended her life today.  I knew she was dying for the past few days, and spent them holding her and crying.  She passed away in my lap this afternoon, and I can't put into words how much I hurt.  She lived a long life, but I wanted her to live longer.  

Penny started out scared and forever in a tight, poky ball, but she slowly came out of her shell over time and learned how wonderful life can be.  She never let anyone take any sort of advantage of her, and was known to bite hard enough to draw blood and hold on for as long as she could.  But she only bit when she found it necessary (or when she was around our buddy Rhen - the nicest guy in the world, but she sure did love to bite him), and allowed me to share her love with my nieces and nephews.  

She's taught me so many life lessons, and she'll always be a part of me.  I won't ever forget the time I was able to have with her, and I hope she was happy with the life she got.  I know I am.

My Annual Tradition

It's been awhile since I've posted anything, and not because I haven't been flexing my creative muscles.  I've actually been working nonstop on a traditional gift I give to my family members every year for Christmas - the Crangle Family Calendar.  This must be my fifth or sixth year putting them together, and they seem to be well received.  And how could they not be?  Having every birthday marked down, alone, makes everyone's lives a little easier, especially with the plethora of nieces and nephews I've been collecting.  I also like to think that my loved ones save each calendar every year, because each one is a time capsule of our family throughout each year, a glimpse into our past and where we've been.  Each one is a collection of my favorite photos taken during the year of my family enjoying life.

On the other hand, I have never been really proud of my calendars - which is something my poor husband has had to hear me complain about relentlessly for the solid month leading up to Christmas and the occasional grumble throughout the year whenever I flip through the pages of my most recent creation.  Yeah, it's nice to have the important days pre-marked for you.  Yeah, the pictures of family members are a nice reminder of happiness.  But really, they've been kind of boring, monotonous, and incredibly cookie-cutter.  I have been waiting as patiently as I can for a year that I can be proud of - I knew it would come, because every year I could see my finished product be a little bit better than the previous one.  And because I'm a firm believer in the Ten Thousand Hours rule - that after enough time plugging away at something, you're bound to eventually be good at it.

...And FINALLY!  I am making something that I am incredibly proud of!  I wanted to share a few rough samples of months I have, just because this really is all I've been working on for the past month and a half, and probably all I'll be working on for the next month.  I'm happy to do it, because I know every hour I spend on this one is another hour closer to an even better calendar next year!

A Different Beast

There were many years of my life when I could not photograph mountains the way I wanted to, and when I moved to Calgary I knew I needed to take advantage of being so close to some of the most beautiful peaks in the world.  I left Calgary feeling confident in my ability to work a camera around mountainous terrain, and I really thought I had gotten comfortable at photographing anything.  These past few weeks on the east coast have definitely proved me wrong.  

I am enamored with water.  Every time I'm near any sort of stream, or river, or lake, or ocean, I end up with literally hundreds of pictures.  I absolutely love the way it looks, and moves, and dominates, and reacts, but every time I get home and unload my photos onto the computer, I'm stumped as to what to actually do with these shots.  And now that I live so close to the ocean, I'm finding my hard drive being filled with salt water, but I just don't know where to go with it.  So I decided to take what I know and add a little bit of Kansas to the beach.  At least it's a start.

To Be or Not to Be

It's been about three years since I've gone off my anti-anxiety medication, which I went off of for a number of reasons.  First, I left it at home when I went back to college after a holiday, and had my sister mail it to me.  I didn't think it'd be a big deal to be off of it for a few days, but I was wrong, and had a huge meltdown that left me in bed for two days.  The idea of being that dependent on a pill scared the shit out of me.  Second, another sister had put me under the impression (whether she meant to or not) that I couldn't be on these pills forever, and that also scared me.  If I couldn't handle a couple days, how could I handle going off of them when I'm pregnant, or when I need to just stop?  And last, but not least, I felt like my art was suffering.  I thought I could no longer feel really passionately about something, and for that reason I would not be able to dig deep inside of myself and pull out a beautiful, emotional piece.  

Although these past few years have been pretty rough, I was able to learn to cope with my emotions to some extent.  My photography picked up, I learned to write every day and focus on the good things, and every now and then I could actually talk myself down from my irrational thought processes.  But it's been exhausting, and there are still so many days and nights I spend worrying about, well, nothing.  

For example, I was up for two hours last night, worrying that my dental history would mean I could never give birth to a healthy baby.  And I can't stop feeling so completely lost about my role in life - what happened to that 18-year-old who would blast Ani Difranco into her ears late into the night, feeling like the world was her oyster and she could be whoever she wanted to be?  What does it mean that I put my husband's career before mine - something that I never thought I'd EVER do in my life, but here I am?  What does that mean about me?  This amount of stress and over-thinking is killing me, so today was the first day I've gone back on my medication.

I know I have the support to go back onto the medicine, and ultimately it will be a good thing.  But that doesn't mean I'm not terrified of what will happen.  When my brain is chemically-balanced again, will my art suffer?  Will I still feel so happy and excited about life when I do feel good, without knowing how bad I could feel?  Will I ever be able to go off of these pills, comfortably?  I just have to remember to look up, to breathe, and to trust my situations.  I deserve to feel strong and independent, regardless of my circumstances.  The only thing holding me back from all life can give me is myself.  I have a wonderful family and husband who have been telling me this for as long as I've known them, and I hope I can finally start listening.  Everybody deserves to feel good.

Creation from Freeform Emotion

I am.....emotional.  It's hard for me to hide my feelings, and most of the time that's a great thing.  I've started creating my own photographs in my own space and time lately, and I'm starting to see my own emotions really creep into them.  Take this piece, for instance:

I like to call it "The Wizard of Oz".  I created it near the end of my summer in Kansas, knowing that my time was coming to an end, feeling all the pictures I had taken over the past few months swirl around in my head, wondering what adventures would be coming next.  The shed, the toads, the architectural stars and smoke bomb in the air - they were all main images floating in my mind all summer.  To put them all together took a lot of my time and energy, along with a huge weight off of my chest.  After making this, I was not as afraid of what I had missed this summer, and a little less anxious about my future to come.  

And now, here I am, on the east coast, trying to figure out what it's going to bring me.  My emotions have been those of which I wish I was better at hiding lately, and I decided I should try to create something new to help me breathe:

And this image is the best way I can describe feeling right now.  Lots of turmoil inside, but trying to keep it all in.  The longer you stare at the ocean, the more you realize you could never, Ever control or contain it.  It is its own beautiful beast.  I know, over time, these rocks will be eroded away, and the ocean waters will be free to take over again.  It's not a bad thing - but at this point in time, it's better to observe my emotions from the outside, rather than be engulfed in them.  In due time, these waters will be free again, and a powerfully wonderful force to see.