you know how i’m always talking about the same things? the heartbreak and joy of family, the duality of life–how we can’t sign up for heaps of happiness without also knowing intense pain?
so, i’m not sick of talking about those even a little. but maybe you’re a tiny sick of hearing about them so i will say just one slice and move on.
our family loving is so hard won. every minute we spin a web of what we ultimately create and all of this–these photos, the work i do–is simply my own attempt to sort through how to weave a better creation in my silent minutes and hours that drag and fly. i find myself being terrible at it. really good in theory; really good at certain pieces that might shine more as my kids get older. but the truth–every day in, day sliding out, i am falling down over and over and reevaluating and reconstructing. the solid ugly bottom of it: i’m not a natural.
so that thing that you want to do really badly–the thing you see a pin of light proving to your mind is possible, but the path is dark and rocky and you’re somehow always wearing flip flops–please keep moving. I get preachy here sometimes only ’cause i care, friends–because i see me and all of us giving up on the things our deepest cores want far too easily. how we spend our days is how we spend our lives, so the best ways I’m finding to be the kind of mother and woman I want to be are by practicing, practicing in easy moments and the turning-point kind where the old Brooke would have thrown in the towel. This process of self-growth is like rolling myself through a cheese grater some days but what we practice we get better at, and every day I am practicing something, whether conscious or no. I wanna practice on purpose.
watching The Naturals–women like Rachel who just wear mothering like a gorgeous glowy second skin–I soak it up like a sponge. And it’s like watching an olympian masterfully execute the same sport you’re fumbling through–ultra inspiring with a swirl of discouraging cause you leave knowing the only way you’ll ever climb to that height is–you guessed it–practice.
Here’s to head-down doin’ and the mountains of love all mamas everywhere lather their babies in–sometimes exactly right, sometimes awkward and out of shape, but always the very best we got.
and HEY if you, yeahh you–LOOKING AT YOU–want family photos that feel real and not just the same flavor of boring-mildly-happy, I’d love to photograph the whole story. Let’s chat about your session and I’ll write cha back lightning fast pinky promise.
