Tal
Sisterhood Support
The past few days have been filled with so many lessons, and gorgeous unfoldings, and one thing I know for certain is this:
The simple act of reaching out to someone and saying, "Hey, let me help you carry that incredible load, so you don't have to do it all alone anymore," is profound.
I am so grateful for the sisters, near and far, who have supported me, and will continue to, as I move through this journey.
Sharing Behind The Curtain
I am not immune to the irony of the situation. I teach a class about waking up our truths and honoring ourselves. I value screen-free time and summer moments spent by the water, collecting memories and seashells with my beloved family.
And here I am, in the hospital, because of extreme stress and not respecting my own limits and boundaries.
For about a week my entire body has felt uncomfortable; like the muscle and joint pain you get with the flu. Everything, especially my back, ached from the moment I woke up to the second I fell asleep, and during the waking hours I was completely exhausted.
I blamed it on my unsupportive shoes, terrible tiny mattress, carrying the heavy bags of wet, lake-soaked clothes back and forth to the laundry room at the campground. These were all on-the-surface things that could be easily fixed, I told myself. Get some new sneakers, a good foam topper, a wheely-cart like the old ladies with curlers in their hair used to push back and forth from the grocery store in my neighborhood growing up.
And then yesterday, in one split second, it all came tumbling down.
I had just finished making breakfast for Lily, when I started to feel pangs of sharp pain in my guts. I put on a movie, hoping we could just relax and it would pass, but by the time Muppets reached their first song, I was sweating and clenching my fists. The pain was only getting worse.
I opened my computer to work and distract myself. (Hello! Red flag!!) By the third email the screen started getting fuzzy, and my eyes couldn't focus. My shirt was now soaking wet and my hair stuck to my damp forehead. I got up to go to the bathroom and splash water on my face but when I stood up everything started spinning. The pain was now shooting down my back and legs and I knew I was going to pass out. All I could think of was getting outside so that Lily wouldn't be stuck in the camper with me, lying on the floor unresponsive.
I opened the front door and let out the tiniest, wimpiest, "Help," and then the next thing I know I'm face down on the rocks and dirt.
The rest is a blur. I know that our camping neighbors rushed over. I know that Josh, one of the maintenance boys who has become like family to us, arrived within seconds. I remember everyone asking me if I wanted to move onto the picnic blanket instead of the ground, but all I wanted was to feel the cold Earth under my face. In those moments, in such pain, there was honestly no place that felt more comfortable, or comforting, to me.
They wanted to rush me off to the hospital, but I just kept begging them to give me a few more minutes in the dirt, under the canopy of trees. I know how ridiculous that sounds, but I knew everything was about to change, and move quickly, and I just wanted a few moments to prepare myself. I cried. I sent prayers up to the treetops, and rooted my fingers deep down into the dirt. Soon enough I would surrender, and I just needed these moments to get my heart in the right place.
Kidney stones. Ulcers. Low body weight.
Those were the medical diagnostics, and I was given a long list of medications and follow-up tests and specialists.
But here I am. In the silence of a morning not yet greeted with sunlight. And I know the real truth and the real changes on the horizon.
Though I have kept it a very closely guarded secret, I have been camping with my two children completely alone this Spring and Summer. Thomas stayed back in Austin to work at his new job and take care of our house. I knew it was going to be a challenge. I knew it was going to be difficult. What I didn't know, or perhaps what I wasn't ready to admit, was that it would be the bravest and hardest adventure, yet.
I work full-time. I own a business (or two or three!) that I love and take very seriously, and the Spring and Summer months are my busiest, by far. So there I was, camping, CAMPING, in a 25-foot capsule, in the middle of the woods with no internet, no phone service, with two children aged 12 and 5, in the beautiful and reckless tornado of wedding season.
Alone.
I didn't want to tell anyone, quite honestly, because I was afraid of being murdered. I'm not sure I've ever felt so vulnerable for so long, sleeping night after night so open to the scary things in the world. With even the tiniest sound I'd sit up in bed, and on my best nights I'd get maybe 3-4 hours sleep.
I cooked our meals from scratch. We joined a local CSA and ate wholesome, healthy meals. But let me tell you, the cooking and washing dishes (with such limited hot water supply) seemed endless most days.
Everything is extra work when you're camping. While it seems like a dedication to the simple life, the irony is, nothing feels simple. The 'simple' act of "going to bed" means transforming the kitchen into a bedroom. The 'simple' act of flushing the toilet means sometimes sticking branches foraged from surrounding trees 'down there' to unstick the messiest messes, and scheduling someone to come pump out your tank when it gets full. Showers, for me, were twice a week. After long days spent being feral, the children needed to be seriously scrubbed each night, and by the time that was finished, there was no hot water left for Mama.
Listen, I am not here to play a victim. I know it sounds like I am complaining, but I'm only trying to keep it real.
There were so many gorgeous moments. So many incredible memories I will forever cherish with my little ones. Not many Mothers can say they had such a rich journey with their children, and I promise I am grateful with every cell in my body.
I captured hundreds of private black and white images that will all be collected and bound in an Artifact Uprising book. The practice of capturing these images forced me to slow down and pay attention to the breathless beauty in the middle of the storm. The new freckles on their shoulders. The swimming-with-all-of-our-clothes-on sunsets at the lake.
The blessings were everywhere at every moment. But sometimes, it's also OK to get honest. To step passed the sun-soaked snaps, and share behind the curtain.
Our days were heavily structured. Braedon helped out, perhaps more than any 12 year old should, but he never complained. Not even once. He loved building our fires and checking on our propane levels, and even reading his sister bedtime stories while I finished the nightly chores. Lily, being her sweet Lily self, filled the atmosphere with light.
Most nights after they were sound asleep, I'd whisper tearful apologies into their hair. "I'm so sorry Mommy was so busy today. I'm so sorry this summer is so hard. I promise I am doing the best I can."
Working. Without internet.
This was a whole different ballgame. Thanks to a few helpers/angels I hired, Julia and Margit, my work never missed a beat. All of my clients received their images within my average 10-day turnaround time. I have a workflow and routine down pat, and once the editing was all complete, I'd drive, once a week, to my mom's house 45 minutes away to send everything off, catch up on blogging, and update social media posts (always careful to schedule in photos of Thomas, to keep the creepy murderers away!).
There is just. so. much. to being a (temporary) single working Mama in the woods. I cannot tell you the new-found respect I have for single parents. While they might not be camping, they are still doing it all alone, and I hold them in the highest regard. I had a light at the end of the tunnel. Even on the worst days, I knew there was a loving husband and cozy home waiting for me. Not everyone has that and I seriously do not know how they do it.
Alone is no joke.
In all of this, there was so much that I let go of. Yoga. Twice-daily meditation. Smoothies. Al-anon meetings. Getting enough sunshine. Dancing in my underwear... The self-care things that, it turns out, I truly cannot live without. With my hospital bracelet still on, I now know that.
So, not even 24 hours since that time I so ungracefully got a reality check straight to the guts, I know it's time to make some serious changes. Time to reevaluate things and shift and recover.
Time to reflect.
This week I will begin packing up the Airstream (it's for sale by the way!) and getting ready to fly back to Austin. I'm sure as time passes, crazy amounts of wisdom will arrive, but for now I am grateful for this one indisputable truth:
I am strong. I am brave. But, I cannot do it all.
And my goodness it feels SO GOOD to finally admit that out loud.
The fog, is lifting.
Jenni + Eric // River Engagement Session Preview
I am camping in the woods and have the slowest internet and no phone service which is awesome except when there is SO much beauty I am dying to share with the world and am so super limited by what will actually upload. I'm reading Thoreau again tonight, and somehow his words keep getting tangled up in this crazy magical shoot tonight.
"The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched...”
Tonight's session with Jenni and Eric was truly beyond words and I cannot wait to share more... 
River Story Truth Session
I'm about to get brave on here for a second and spill some truths. I haven't done it in a while but it's time. To everyone who has reached out to me in the last few months warning me about so-and-so photographer copying my River Stories, I thank you. I mean that when I say it. It means so much to me that you care about me and this work. I see them. I know they are there. I cannot go onto instagram or Facebook without seeing another photographer who I am "friends" with presenting their river work to the world.
It bothered me at first. At first it totally pissed me off. And then when I sat with that anger for a while, I realized it wasn't anger I was feeling at all.
It was fear. I was afraid that somehow, my message would get diluted and swept up in the wave of pop-photography-culture.
I'm still afraid sometimes.
This isn't a trend. This isn't hay bales for seats or hemp table runners or Pantone's color of the year inspiration board. This is my salvation. And I don't care who makes fun of me for being "too deep" but that's my truth. Going to the river waters keeps me alive.
For example, this week I didn't get enough sleep because I was awake wondering if my biological father remembers my birthday is coming up, and worrying about my adoptive father dying while fighting for his life for the ten thousandth time in rehab. My son is flying alone for the first time, thousands of miles away, and I'm terrified of all the what-ifs. I could go on and on.
For now, I just mean to illustrate that we all have our battles. We all have our masks. And we all have our ways of facing each day.
Photography is my way of thriving in the face of my struggles.
I know what it's like to stop creating. I know what it's like to take only pretty pictures of pretty people in pretty poses, sterile and pretend. To try and be like the others who color within the lines. But, I also know what it's like to photograph love stories that make my bones ache with awe, and to bring women to wild rushing waters to meet themselves in entirely new ways then they ever thought possible. I know what it's like to stay up all night editing and writing and crying because that tiny part of you that you never thought would ever heal, is somehow being transformed by the cosmic creative process.
And so every single day, I choose to make the art that keeps my light shining. I choose to make art that makes me a better mother, wife, human being.
I choose to stand, completely vulnerable, in the waters with my clients and share laughs and stories and tears. I choose to take my heart straight out of my chest and frame it in Squareready/instagram/VSCO/whatever app is out next, and share it with the world. I choose to take a stick and draw a circle around myself in the sand and call it this blog, and then fill it with images still hot from the glow of my inner fire.
Not because it's a cool trend, or because people might look cool if they are wet. But because I don't want to ever go back to taking empty photographs.
I don't want to, and I won't.
So now, when I see all of the other photographers crowing their clients with wildflowers and plunging them into waters worldwide, there is a part of my heart that celebrates a little.
Because even if their motives are shallow and even if their pictures are all wrong and even if they are just trying to copy or play it safe or use my ideas to get ahead or whatever, the fact is, they are standing in the rivers. Something I created woke up a calling in their own soul to journey to the waters and walk through the mud and come face to face and heart to heart with the whisper in their sleep that sings, "Wild." And that matters to me.
They made it to the water.
That feels important to my heart.
River Story was my idea and born of my bones. Women wearing flower crowns and white bohemian dresses, or nothing at all, being sacredly and poetically photographed in rivers is, was, and always will be my creation. There's a kickstarter campain and international magazine features, and an upcoming book. There are thousands of miles traveled all across the country in a tiny Airstream and a billion campfire stories for my children to share with their children.
But, I guess there's a deeper part of this whole process that's about healing and helping and moving beyond the boundaries of ownership, pride and ego. Sure it was my idea, but maybe there's something so much bigger to all of this.
I wish all of the women could do it, together. I wish we could all have hair tangled with lavender and plumeria and naked river-stained skin. I do.
And maybe we can.
People are going to unapologetically copy. It's just the way it is now. And I'm determined to find the goodness in that, too because there's no stopping it, and because why would I ever want to stop women from finding their ways to the waters.
The rivers need us, and we need them, and the world needs women who aren't afraid of getting dirty or loving one another right up close.
So for tonight, I'm going to ask that you stop emailing me about the copycats. Because for now, in this moment, I'm happy celebrating that I'm not alone. That there are other women out there who love the rivers just as much as I do.
And maybe, just maybe, there's a way for me to share my wisdom and vision and help more people then I ever even thought was possible.
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
-Rumi
