Giving Up

The past few months have taught me a lot.  I am fully aware of what I gave up, the fancy cars, traveling in private jets, a lifestyle that just screamed "I MADE IT".  But, the truth is that I was miserable.  Photography has always been my creative outlet, my refuge, and I can only create when I'm in a certain space - you can't ask a musician to write a Top 10 song every day for years and expect a good result.  You can pretty much expect crap.  And you can't ask an artist to paint a Mona Lisa every day either, or a photographer to perform on demand and get a photo that makes you stop in your tracks.  And trust me, the kind of photography I do is not something that comes from me, it comes through me.  I don't know when the muse will show up, if ever - or when that channel with Source will be open so it can work through me.  I have NO IDEA, my friends, none at all.  When I speak on panels, or give interviews, people always comment how my photos make them feel.  Well, that's the point - if I don't feel anything, my photos will be void of feeling.  The holistic photographer?  HA!  Whatever, I've been called worse.

I have enjoyed the fancy life, several times in my life time, and I always come back to my Soul wanting one thing, and one thing only - freedom.  Because then, and only then, I can create.  I feel close to Source, I feel something that makes you feel as well.  That's the ultimate connection.  

Music was my life for so many years - I miss it, every single day.  I miss touring, I miss a simple life that was lived out of a suitcase, I miss meeting amazingly talented people.  I actually stopped listening to music for a while, it was too painful... I would turn on the radio and it would bring me to pieces, because I either remembered photographing a show, or imagined how I would photograph it.  Then, something changed... I found myself listening to music in the morning, in the car, and I started to even sing along.  What happened?  I gave up - I gave up the past, the way things were or "should have been", and I found my love for music again.  Because it started in my bedroom in Italy, when I was a young girl, and my brother was a radio DJ, and we were surrounded by music all the time.  I remember going to the radio station with my brother, and getting lost in copying lyrics from English LPs, so I could translate each word into my native language and understand the meaning.  Lyrics, poetry, connection.  Universal need.

A few weeks ago I disappeared from social media, needing a break from digital friendships and reconnecting with real life ones.  I noticed that even my close friends were mentioning something I wrote on Facebook or a photo on Instagram, and interpreted my life to be fine, or came to certain conclusions that couldn't be further from the truth.  I craved real friendship, my brother's voice, a hug.  I craved connection.  So I did - I wrote letters (snail mail!), spoke on the phone, got together with people I love dearly.  And in all that time, I didn't check Facebook, and thought nothing of it - then one day I started to read through my messages... that was a bit heartbreaking.  I didn't realize some people really took comfort in my sharing a kind word here and there - or found inspiration in something I wrote.  The messages kept coming, from people I never met, and from friends.  One in particular made me quite sad - a person I met a few times on tour wrote to let me know how a poem I shared reached her at the right time, "spoke" to her in a time of distress and kept her from making a bad decision.  And I fell apart.  I only saw my side, my need, all this time.  I didn't get that I can connect with people in many ways, photography being my preferred way.  So, here I am blogging, because I can say more than I feel is "acceptable" on Facebook or restricted on Twitter.  Anyone going to read this?  I don't know.  Anyone feeling the same?  I don't know.  I can only know if you connect with me.  Here, in real life and here, in the digital world.  I'm a work in progress, one that needs freedom at all cost, but one that is willing to try new ways to reach out and share this Journey, without ever giving up.  And that connection is what makes me feel alive.  

So, we can connect in many ways, and I hope my photos lately make you feel something...