watch out 'cause it's gonna be good!, musee mecanique, san francisco, september 2006

It is with great fondness yet enthusiasm that I bid adieu to 2006. This, the year I started to blog. I have made so many meaningful connections with people that I never would have found otherwise. This year of turnings. Turning away from the "I can'ts" and embracing the "I can toos!". A year of tunes and pictures and laughs and love.

I am moving forward into 2007 with more hope and joy and faith in myself than I have ever experienced. I am heading right for myself. Towards the me I am meant to be. And it wouldn't be the same without you.

Thank you for sharing in my journey.

Happy, happy new year and love to you and yours.

(follow the photobooth crew here :)

red.

December's
Self Portrait Challenge.

girl and her camera in the booth, musee mecanique, san francisco, september 2006

This has been a heavy week indeed. So heavy, in fact, that the fun and silly photobooth shots that I have in the coffers seemed inappropriate. This one is decidedly better for the day. A little moody and ethereal - I really love the colors in this shot of my reflection off the glass inside the vintage booth. Even that red light that is bouncing back from the camera behind the glass. Not sure why that happens when not using a flash. A mirrored surface in there or refraction or something. Happened to another of the PBF gals a while back, too, but can't remember who (remind me?). And if you know why the red bounce? Tell me that too won't you?

I have decided that that red light will stand as representative of the one I see at the end of my most recent tunnel. I do believe that the big shi-shi holiday shindig in the city tonight with dear friends, a journey to pick out the tree and decorating/rolling around together/eating decadently/watching rudolph 70's style all day with my favorite boy in the world tomorrow and then the Sinterklaas celebration that we attend tomorrow night will do wonders for my spirit.

Because my favorite thing about this time of year? It is reflecting on my life and counting up each one of my precious little stars and thanking the universe for providing them to me.

Each and every one.

Won't you please?

Because it has been so very, very heavy lately. There are many layers to this. Most recently a friendship on the rocks, pangs of achy loneliness around the holidays and I have also been so very distressed by the Kim family saga. I cried this morning upon learning that Kati and the kids had been found. I have never even met them yet it has been hard for me to think of little else over the past week. Please pray that James is found safe and sound today.

If I am even more deeply honest about it, I believe this heavy heart has been dogging me for most of my thirty nine years. I have experienced so many highs and happinesses along this journey. Most who have met me know right away that I am all about humor, laughs, festivities yet I suspect if you were to look very closely you might glimpse that well-hidden and protected sliver of longing underneath it all.

You see I have always known that 'he' would arrive some day and would recognize me instantly. The 'he' that I do not need to fulfill me but, instead, to inflate and smooth and round out this heart. The one that could - when the moment was just right - press and hold this ache and take the the pain away.

Update: I am just so very sorry that James didn't make it. This certainly makes one's daily problems pale in significance. My heart goes out to the Kim family and their friends on this sorrowful day and all of the days to come.


(Photo taken of one of the fortune telling machines at the Musee Mecanique in San Francisco, CA, October 2006 for self portrait challenge.)

Mama and PickleBoy, Balboa Arcade, CA, Summer 2000

Can you believe how fast this whole life thing flies by? Six years since this booth photo was taken and, my, has this boy grown.

Sorry about the hit-and-run approach I've had to writing lately. Photos and music have been usurping my creative juices. And then there is that whole time flying by thing and I just...well, I just...aww, nevermind. Just have a nice weekend and I promise more words next week.

Do the deed and head over to my lovely hula girl to see the rest of the PBF crew!