Four years ago I wrote my first real post on Living in a Still Life. I used the daybook format as a kind of introduction. Now, 514 posts later, I feel like I need to re-introduce myself. Life changes and I’m all over the place, a fact clearly reflected on this blog.

What’s it all about?

I have a lot of kids. Seven, in fact, and believe it or not, that is something that continually comes as a surprise to me. It only adds to the joy, though. Friday they decided to play catch — but not just any ordinary catch. The 4th grader stuck his head out the second floor window while five other siblings waited in the front yard with arms outstretched. See what I mean? And of course, being the bad mother that I am, I let them keep on playing the game while I snapped away on my phone. I gave up long ago worrying about what the neighbors think.

But it’s not really about the kids. Or about being a mom. There are enough blogs out there that do that already, and do it so well and so beautifully that I take all the inspiration I need from them. And then I use it all up just trying to make it to the kids’ bedtime.

A Mommy Photographer?

The kids, and my daily life, figure very prominently in my photography. I’ve talked before about that role: family archivist or preserver of memories for future generations. It’s important and probably what I would consider my “legacy.”

At one point, I thought this blog would be all about photography. I wrote a couple of tutorial posts, guest-posted a photoshop tutorial and even offered textures and brushes as freebies. But I couldn’t keep up the production schedule. It’s not really a business for me and try as hard as I may, I can’t make it so — I don’t want to make it so.

But there is still a restlessness inside of me that is only calmed when I create. Pope Pius XII wrote, “The function of all art lies in fact in breaking through the narrow and tortuous enclosure of the finite, in which man is immerged while living here below, and in providing a window to the infinite for his hungry soul.”

Now, please don’t get the impression that I imagine myself to be some Michaelangelo, painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. I just want to make pretty pictures for God’s refrigerator. That’s supposed to sound humble and not like some eye-rolling, cringing-worthy vapidness. Did I mention that I’m more of a visual person? I could use an editor…

So, there’s Faith

And in the end, isn’t that what it all comes down to? Photography is my chosen medium but the expression is all about Faith. I forgot that for awhile. I let my gaze fall away from Christ and just like Peter, I began to sink.

It takes a boatload of grace to make it through the day with seven kids standing next to you. That Grace is a great gift and we are all given charisms that allow us to share that Grace, to be vehicles of that Grace for others. It’s taken me a few years (I’m only a twenty-four year old Catholic) but I can stand now and say with St. Therese, “All is Grace!”

I’m Nobody

Despite that firm foundation, I still hear Emily’s poem in my head:

I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there’s a pair of us! Don’t tell!
They’d banish — you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one’s name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!

And I’m left to puzzle over why I want to do this blog thing and what-in-the-world do I really think I have to offer? I don’t want to be a croaking frog, how dreary! But yes, I do want to share with you. If you’ve made it this far, dear Reader, Welcome! Future posts will be shorter. It’s taken me all morning to write this as I was continually interrupted by the two and four year olds. But it’s not all about the kids…