What the space before dreaming looks like

In the space before dreaming fear cannot find me.  I lean open-palmed into the darkness, and snap pictures with my lids – bursts of black thrown against the light.  Everything I make in the space before dreaming is right.  Because only my heart is there to judge.  Every image, a husked memory, woven tight.  Nothing less.  Nothing more.  Captured not because it needed to be beautiful but because it is part of a story meant to be told.  In the space before dreaming, I knit my worries wings and push them thru the cracked sill over my head.  Their escape leaves me empty, and whole.  Here, every beat and sound and sob and shout can find it’s way through the finest needle hole of my heart.  They fit without splitting me open, printing images on the underside of my soul.  In the space before dreaming, I am immune to the noise.  I am a wide open window, within a tightly clamped safe.  I make no mistakes.  I define imperfection.  I take pictures with no mercy.

So very honored to join a lovely group of photographers, sharing a monthly post on “What ____ looks like.”  Please continue the blog circle to drink in the amazing, amazing work of Lindsey Bergstrom.  You will not be disappointed.

{Preview} Full

You were little.  My arms limitless.  I had hands that scooped like buckets and arms that could carry you across the sky. I could fit you any-which-way, for I was the soil from which you grew.  These were our ripest days.  We linked like an echo.  You beat loudly, a heart upon my hip.

But I knew growing-up would catch you. Turn you into a weed at my kitchen table.  Drinking light.  Craning your big-boy neck towards the sun.  Climbing, pushing, plowing off into the sunshine.  You tumbled into blur and it was my arms that helped you go. 

I’ve folded this bit of you, full, ripe, on the verge of everything, into a perfect square.  Tucked you neatly into the back drawer of my memory.  There I can pull you out when I need to feel your heaviness upon my skin.  Remember us molded by light and song.  Skin and sky.  And the feeling of my heart so full it spilt upon the floor.

{Preview} Finding Stella

Long before Stella’s birth, her name came to her Mother, like a dagger – clear, unmistakable, true.  I remember Lisa, barely pregnant, whispering into the phone she was 100% sure it was a girl.  Didn’t need the ultrasound to know.  This baby already had her arms curled in Lisa’s auburn hair and a foot in the world’s door.  So she arrived, with a bang:  old-lady soul, tireless agenda, flashing smile, great purpose, and the unmistakable stare of a baby on a mission.  Stella seemed the type of baby you could put on the floor at three months and watch her get up and go.  Never look back.  Bowl you right over - forget about her size.  For Stella is as sweet as they come, but has that true, deep intensity.  Never ceasing to remind you every second of the day she is so much more than a baby.  I think some babies find their way into this world -- aren’t simply born.  Stella is one of them.

Happy Birthday, sweet girl.