Yesterday was my 29th birthday. I didn't spend it mourning the impending end to my youthful twenties. I didn't spend it dreading the fact that I'm another year closer to "middle aged". And I did not spend it sitting ever-bored in my cubicle, staring at a computer screen for a seeming eternity (which, if you want to be technical about it, is approximately 8 hours). No, I didn't do anything that could make my day full of woe or suckitude, but I did get to spend a few extra minutes with my son on the school grounds, and watch him run around the playground until the bell rang. I then got to meet my good friend Yoda for some delicious diner breakfast at Joan's Kitchen, complete with Bosco berry blue milk and sugared omelets. After that, I got to spend a few hours of quality time with Mother Nature, accompanied by my epic musical playlist (a playlist I've since titled "Yeah, That's Right"), which led me straight into an evening of new friends and experiences that won't soon be forgotten.
Yesterday could have just been another Wednesday. It could have just been another birthday, too. It was a good day to be me, for sure. It apparently was also a good day for singing Regina Spektor to fish. But more than that, I hope that one day I'll look back on it and see that day as the beginning of a new journey for me. A journey where I leave the safe and comfortable confines of what I know, and venture to new, unknown places and experiences.
Before I left for my date with nature, Yoda had given me my birthday present: a copy of the Oxford Project. He added an inscription inside, telling me how one of his friends uses this book as an ongoing source of inspiration for him as a photojournalist, and also some of his advice for me. I haven't had a chance to really sit down to look through and read the stories yet, but the few glances I've been able to catch here and there have me hopeful that this book will be a good resource and an inspirational tool to keep my creative juices flowing, and my motivation piqued (I hope!).
If my day had ended there, I think I still would have felt a bit pumped about a new project, but it didn't end there. *insert dramatic flashback sequence here* A few years back, I became a bit of a social-media addict and simply signed up for as many up-and-coming sites as I could. Some of them were pretty boring. Some were extremely redundant. But some were fun. And some were fun AND also addicting. One such addicting site was blip.fm, and I'd befriended a few blippers over the years that I not only had similar musical tastes with, but later learned I'd had more in common with beyond our mutual love of indie pop. Fast forward a couple of years, and an opportunity presents itself that I get to meet not just one, but two of these musical soul mates of mine.
Enter Eva and Emmet.
In the few hours that I was able to spend with Eva and Emmet, I got to: sit in on an art discussion group that Emmet had with a few of his Hmong students and learn about their culture and history, talk about music and politics and just random life with the E's, and I got to observe Eva in her natural habitat: behind a camera. Later on, as she and I ate pancakes and chocolate cake at 10:30pm, she even gave me a mini crash course in photography. She also seemed certain that I am to do something artsy with my life and was surprised that I had never taken any art courses. Her persistent encouragement last night to have me take some art classes, coupled with Yoda's inspiring gift on photojournalism, led me to a day of a lot thinking. I am notorious for wanting to do things, and getting ideas to do new things...and then never doing anything. And you know what? I hate that. I hate that I can't follow through on things, and that I can always find a reason to NOT do something. I want to do...something. Anything. Everything! But, for now, I'm going to focus on a few things that I can realistically accomplish, and then I'll work on everything else.
Baby step #1: I'm going to update this blog daily. Since I don't know if I can actually get myself to ramble on each day, I am going to push myself to, at the very least, take one picture a day and post it here, but hopefully I'll have something to say, too.
I just hope, for my sake and the sake of anyone who decides to read this, that I'm not this long winded each time.
^_^
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