this is actually a post i wrote back in the Spring but in an effort to share more of the many drafts i have on here, i am sharing it tonight.
all Summer it has been an idea that has held up for me and has been on my mind many times during the past few months.
i would love to hear your thoughts on it, as always, if you feel like reaching out and sharing them.
this is an idea that has been circling the walls of my mind all week.
sparked by a late night conversation with a friend over beers and gin and tonics and black bean burgers (just kidding. there was only one black bean burger. mine...)
i don't remember his exact wording but he essentially said:
well you know don't you, that the moments you are nostalgic for, that you remember with fondness in your mind, are the ones in which you were truly YOU. you were yourself, as you were meant to be. unhindered and uncaring about the world and others perspective of you.
and for some reason this blew. my. mind.
perhaps because i am one to always be searching for enlightenment/self actualization/knowing who i am in every new season and aspect of my life and i am somewhat of a junky for self help/tips on living your best life and discovering your truest self.
but so much of that learning and search can be clouded by the external voices of the world.
i believe we were each born with inherent worth and value, unable to be earned or acquired by any worldly action or accomplishment, and yet that is not largely how i live my life a lot of the time. the reason for which is often because i have lost sight of who i am.
and because the day-to-day moments and the now can often be clouded, rushed, confusing and hurried, it is often in looking back at the past that this clarity, this recognition of inherent self, is gained for me.
(the age-old adage of hindsight being 20/20 of course also applies)
and as my friend brought this thought to the table, granted, largely expanded upon and explored by my all-at-once anchored mind, i immediately had moments in my life that i recognized and indeed often go back to in just such a way. with just such nostalgia. and i see, with such precision and clarity that those are indeed the moments that i have been, and truly am, myself: as i was made to be.
a young girl running around in the woods and arrested in thought by different shapes of individual blades of grass.
the moments of peace and calm within my apartments in the fan.
walking around Richmond in the evenings and observing the day exchange pace with the night.
the linear travel and connection of curiosity and play that encapsulated my childhood in boatyards while my Father worked on his boats.
the sitting in grass, in the arms of trees, on the worn decks of old houses, in the back seats of cars, all over the world reading countless books.
being cross legged on the floor listening to my Mother read to me and introduce to me at such a young age a broader view of something more than what was my immediate and physical world.
driving alone on back country roads.
pockets of time in my room alone creating endlessly hour after hour in varying mediums and materials. losing track of time as i taught myself new art forms and lessons and allowed my curiosities and love for process to shape the outcome more than my expectations.
these are who i am.
largely strung together during my childhood and during my adolescence into adulthood (a topic we also discussed, the reality of the selves we were as children being our truest selves and most telling of who we inherently are)
i don't know why this feels so important.
maybe it doesn't to anyone else but me.
but i feel as though it is, and something in me feels that it is an idea meant for others other than just myself.
so here is where i record it, as with so many other things on here that can be listed under the tagline: or so i feel.