I belong to a photo meetup group in Baltimore, Creative Exposure, (and no, that is not a euphemism for nekkid photography, as one of my friends suggested!) and for the next meetup, we need to bring our best prints, framed and ready to hang.  They will then be hanged on the wall of a cafe in Baltimore, On the Hill Cafe, and offered for sale.

Eek!  I’ve never done something like this before!  But I’m willing to shuck down that fear and go for it anyway.

So, if you feel inclined, I’d love you to click on the image link below (which will take you to Picasa Web Albums)  and let me know which photo you think is the best.  Feel free to leave as much or as little feedback as you like.  Constructive critique welcomed too.

Thanks!

Creative Exposure Potentials

My new blog is about my quest for a baby.  The quest is about to get scary and I figured a new blog would do it justice.

May I present to you…..To the Womb and Back – One Woman’s Quest to Have a Baby.

Do I just leave it out here for prosperity?  Delete it?  Or maybe just protect it.  What about my readers?  If I have any anymore that is .  I just don’t know.

I’m kind of-sort of motivated to start a photography blog, to showcase my amateur hobby and to solicit constructive feedback.  So do I just convert this to a photography blog?  And leave all the old stuff?  Or start afresh, on a clean slate?

One of the issues I have with this blog is all the pain.  So much pain written on these pages!  I still have it, the pain, but I just can’t face blurbing it all out there for the world to see anymore.  I seem to have gone internal with it.  Or maybe I just don’t have the energy for it anymore.

World, do you have an opinion about this?  Can you help me reach a decision?

I’ve emigrated twice, first from South Africa to the UK and then from the UK to the USA. Ten years ago last month, Jenty said goodbye to me too. It’s taken me years to fully understand what that leaving did to the friends and family I left behind.

I very nearly lost a dear friend forever (not Jenty) because of the resulting sadness and anger. We fixed it though and reached a new level of understanding between us and our relationship has grown because of it, but it was scary for a while.

I bitterly disappointed my Dad and Step-Mom when I left the UK – they were in the process of emigrating from South Africa to the UK to be with their newly born grandkids and all us kids who had made our way to the UK – and then I left to go to the USA. Of course they “understood”, but the feelings were raw and I think still are to a degree.

In many ways, it’s easier to be the one leaving. You have so much to look forward to, so much to think about, you don’t have time to really dwell on anything. It’s sad for the person leaving, but even sadder for the people left behind.

But it changes.

The people left behind get drawn back into their regular lives and although they miss the person, their lives are pretty much “normal”.  Slowly, the resulting gap is filled back in, albeit with tiny air holes.  Because, let’s face it, that’s life.  People may not leave an area, but interests change and friendship dwindle and new friendships start.  It’s a natural process, but generally a slow and relatively easy progression.  The hurt may always be there, but it gets mixed in with normal life.

For the person who left though, those gaps are never filled in.  Because it’s not just one gap, left by one person.  It’s a whole family gap, a whole friends gap, a whole time gap, a whole history gap, a whole philosophical gap, a whole culture gap, sometimes even a whole language gap.  You no longer have the attitudes, beliefs and norms, which you pretty much absorbed as an infant, as your security of being and assurance of your place in the world.  You have to learn all that again, as a conscious adult.  You likely sound different from the people around you.  Your difference is always noted.  Your loss is always there, just under the surface, waiting to have its scab picked at by people around you who are excited by your different-ness.  You try to fit in and do fit in – mostly.  But there is always a difference and beneath the difference lies the pain of homesickness.

Of course, I speak from my own experience.  Others may not have experienced emigration this way, but I have also observed it time and time again with other expats.

I never expected this.  Ten years after leaving my homeland, the pain is more bitter, more intense.  I regularly break down in tears because of it — like now.

So why, you ask don’t I just go back?  Because I can’t.  Physically, I am safer here than in SA.  My kids will have a safer and happier existence here than in SA.  I have made a life here – I have fought for a life here.  By the time I realised this pain would intensify and not diminish over time, it was too late.  I was too deeply entrenched in life here with my american husband, step-kids and wonderful soul-sister friends.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love the US – for so many reasons that will fill a few posts one day.  But my heart aches and yearns for stark, raw Africa, the land of my birth, childhood, teenage-hood and early adulthood.   And even though I only lived in the UK for 5 years, I miss that precise shade of green that I’ve only ever encountered in rainy England and the ancient European history that just oozes from every town and village.  But mostly, my heart justs aches to be with my immediate family who all live in the UK now and my friends who are now scattered around the globe (OZ, NZ, SA).

Jenty, I am so sorry for your pain.  I know that every friend or family member who leaves just adds to the hurt and amplifies the old hurt again.   As someone who commented on your blog said, at least we have the internet.  It doesn’t make it all the way better, but it does help some.

Today is a really, really big day for me!  Today is the day I post my first photo online taken with my brand new camera!

I love that it’s for the Earthmosaic project.  And I love that I have an image I’m relatively happy with.  But please, I am no photography expert, in fact, I wouldn’t even call myself a photography amateur, so please feel free to critique the shot.

After threatening for the longest time, I finally bought my camera on Saturday.  And I love it!  It’s a Olympus E-410 DSRL, my first SLR camera — the smallest SLR on the market.  It takes pics so fast!  No horrible delay like from my digital point and shoot.  And I can take action shots from within a moving car and actually get a halfway decent shot.  Awesome!

This pic was taken from my back deck, looking out over our townhouse development.  We just moved here and I haven’t yet found a permanent place for my chimes yet.  So for now they are hanging from the birdfeeder pole.

Just as you are certain that your life will be filled with abundance in the future, appreciate what you have right now.
Focus on five things you are grateful for today.

During this hectic time in my life (a story for another day), I’m finding it tough to just stop and smell the flowers.  It’s a real pity seeing as we’re at the start of what promises to be a glorious spring.  Just today, the petals from the blossoms of the cherry blossom trees began drifting to the ground beneath them, ironically mimicking the snow falls of a few months prior.

So today’s reminder was timely indeed — and now I find myself blogging again after a long, dry hiatus — miracles truly never cease.

So then, what am I grateful for — right here in this precise minute?  In no particular order:

1. My insatiable curiosity for knowledge and the intelligence to process and integrate it.
2. For my current career, web creation.  Not only does it satisfy my technical brain needs, but it fuels and drives my creativity.  I get to work with colour!  And design!  A far cry from my first 10 years in IT where I programmed investment bank back office transactions in a dry, old mainframe language.  Don’t get me wrong, I am deeply grateful for my dry, old mainframe days; heck, it enabled me to move from South Africa to the UK and finally to the USA.  But the work I am doing now, speaks to my soul, in a way the early days never did.  What more could one ask for?
3. A wonderfully understanding, supportive and loving husband!  Saturday we celebrate our 2 year wedding anniversary and words cannot describe how grateful I am to have him along with me on the strange journey we call life.
4. Friends and family, old and new, near and far.  I am especially grateful to my longstanding friends who have seen me through 2 country moves, a divorce and numerous other stressful life events.  Thank you for sticking with me, even though you are so far away.  You’re always near in my heart.
5. I am eternally thankful to have found my connection to spirit.  Many seek, few truly find the way.  I found it through Reiki.  I am not always connected every minute of every day, but I how how it feels and I know how to get there.  I just need a reminder and a nudge every now and then to go to where I need and want to be – my spirit home.

So there you have it, my “Grateful For” list.  What are YOU grateful for today?

It’s actually a bit of a “nothing” post though, just a quick catch-me-up type.

Life is just so THRILLING right now!

New house – closing by end January, moved in by end February.
New baby – well, not quite yet, but in the making.  And am also thinking of starting a new blog to document the progress.
New job – shhhhhh….it’s supposed to be very quiet.  And, well it is.  More to come on this by the end of this week.

I just wanted to record this wonderful feeling of bursting out of my skin with excitement!

And say that even though I am not blogging very much, I am still reading your blogs.  Those that celebrate the December holidays, hope you had a great time.  And a very Happy & Prosperous 2009 to everyone!

Apparently it’s about mutation?!

“Proponents of memes suggest that memes evolve via natural selection – in a way very similar to Charles Darwin’s ideas concerning biological evolution – on the premise that variation, mutation, competition, and “inheritance” influence their replicative success. For example, while one idea may become extinct, other ideas will survive, spread and mutate – for better or for worse – through modification.”

So we’re all about mutation and propagation here, people. As we’ve all already subdivided and had kids, let’s mutate! Add yours to the list.

1. Real Moms don’t flinch when they talk about boobs. They do make you laugh your brains out.

2. Real moms go on vacation. Real moms go on vacation and learn to play traffic cop.

3. Real moms brag about their kids

3. Real moms do not mince words when they present the truth.

4. Real moms juggle

5. Real moms “resist the guilt and embrace the journey”

6. Real moms don’t give a damn to media generated Mommy Wars

7. Real moms have kids with potty mouths

8.  Real moms sometimes forget about toddler-proofing

And mine….

9. Real moms can be step-moms

The rules:

• Copy the above text to your blog, leaving all links in tact and add in who tagged you.
• Add your ‘real mom’ contribution to the list.
• Tag as many moms as you can.
• And meme-ify!

I hate tagging!  So here is my mutation (along with any grammer errors I might have found)…if you feel inspired, join in.

I looked at her and said “Honey, I’m a REAL MOM already!  Being a step-mom to you and your brother is as real to me and you as your real mom is”.

Of course I understood what she was saying…one day soon, god(s) willing…I will be a biological mom.

But I wanted her to know that the mothering I do for them is just as important as what their “real” mom does.  When the kids are with us, if I am not mothering with all my heart and soul (mistakes and all)  I am doing them and myself a disservice.  How much more “real” can you get than that?  I mean, really!

The words coming out of my mouth surprised me as much as her.

Wow.  I’m impressed with where we are now in this complicated “blended family” business, compared to where we were 18 months ago.

The emotion around this US election from people everywhere around me, is just huge.  From immense fear, felt deep in the core — to elation and tears of joy.

Well done Mr. President!  You have achieved something beyond what anyone thought would ever happen here in the US.

May you rule as wise and as blessed as Mr. Mandela.  May you bring the strength and beauty of the essence of the Rainbow Nation to the US.