I just caught myself stalking the art and life of someone who got accepted to a grad program that I didn’t.  Five minutes in I knew it was the worse type of self abuse ever. I was measuring my self worth against someone else’s outward appearances.  I  am not, nor will I ever be this person. That’s neither good or bad, it just is.  The sooner I stop running from me, the more sanity I’ll gain, and the better the quality of life I’ll have.  This is the life I was given.  I have to deal with it. I hope to eventually love it, just the way it is. I don’t want to exist. I want to live.

Amen. Ashé. Selah.

Rosie.

Yesterday morning was warmish, about 60 or so degrees. It was clear and the sky was as beautiful as always.  A photographer friend and I had decided the evening before that we’d follow through that morning on a shoot that I’d committed to a while back. We’d be shooting in the forest. I’d be being shot in the nude. Being far from the “model type” the idea frightened but excited me at the same time. I was ready. I was ready to feel empowered and sexy in my own skin.

The hardest part, as I had already been told by others, was getting the clothes off; followed closely getting acclimated to being naked outside (burr).  It wasn’t long though before I was chatting casually with him about mortality, artistic relevance, and other shit artsy nerds talk about as he snapped away giving minimal direction. Even sitting on the cold and moldy log in the middle of the forest (or as much forest as one can get our quickly developing city), I was notaware of my body. I  felt the cold, the wet of the ground, but I could not see myself in that world.

It wasn’t until we’d gotten back to Starbucks and he’d began to load the photos on to his computer that I actually got to see myself.  It was odd initially.  It’s very hard for me to look at myself in pictures. After awhile though, thanks to his magnificent talent  for capturing beauty exactly has he sees it, I began to see myself. I saw myself as a part of that world and a part of the world; a beautiful extension of all that was around me. Then I’d began to see bits of me that I glance over on a daily basis, but never really look at.  Like a scratch that lives on my left knee.

I’d gotten that scratch while doing what I did best as a child, trying to keep up with my older brother.  We were wild ghetto chaps, jumping up and down on a mattress that had seen its better days. After one particularly profound leap into the atmosphere I landed with substantial force on a spring that had escaped the holding of the mattress. I remembered being so shocked that I didn’t cry.  I just glared at the ever swelling bloody crescent shaped scar forming on my knee, and thought about how disappointed my Nana would be with me for damaging my skin. She had a thing about my skin, me being light skinned, and preserving the integrity of it 😦 .

Anyway, in the noticing of that scar I once again felt the  exhilaration of being light (in body) and tiny propelling myself in the air as if by magic.  It’s funny what photos can do.  They grab you, hold you and put you in touch with that which you’d forgotten to remember.  I’m truly grateful for that experience, and cannot wait to get butt naked in from of a camera again ;).

Rosie.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present the extraordinary eye of Sr. CHD:WCK!