swim

"You've got to swim. Swim for your life. Swim for the music that saves you when you're not so sure you'll survive. You've got to swim and swim when it hurts. The whole world is watching. You haven't come this far to fall off the earth. The currents will pull you away from your love. Just keep your head above."

I'm really struggling a lot with my digital art class. Photography is my passion, I live for it and love it with an intensity I reserve only for my family. Sometimes, I even tease them that I love my camera more than them. So when I put my work out there in the world and it gets attacked, it feels like I'm the one being attacked. [I need to remember to keep this post about me and how I feel, not about the way my art class treats me.] The best way to counteract destruction is to create, to swim. When the art majors and the art teacher try to correct my composition because it's not rule of thirds, or they tell me to crop because they don't like the negative space I chose to employ, it sounds to me like my vision is being questioned. The photos in question were blogged previously, so you know it's obvious that I am proud of them. [I almost wrote 'was' instead of 'am', but that isn't right. Just because my professor doesn't like them doesn't mean that I have to stop appreciating their beauty.] My knee-jerk reaction is to stop blogging, to stop sharing on Facebook, maybe to even stop shooting... but I can't/won't abandon my passion, just because someone else doesn't understand. To them, photographs are snapshots to they can remember; to me, photographs are my memories. They construct my world.



This is compounded by being in pain. All the time. This heart problem/chest pain/stress is wearing me down. I don't have it in me to set up complex conceptual shots. If I'm disheartened, what motivation do I have to push myself further? The conscious decision I make every time I take a photo, share it, or blog about it is my motivation. The best advice I've been given concerning my heart is to do what makes me happy and share what I love. It's the only thing that works.

"You gotta swim. Swim in the dark. There's no shame in drifting. Feel the tide shifting and wait for the spark. You've got to swim. Don't let yourself sink. Just find the horizon, I promise you it's not as far as you think."

I was listening to Jack's Mannequin the other night while I was editing because I needed to hear these words. Now I'm telling you because I need you to hear it. Dear home, dear world, dear fans, dear haters, dear mom and Doug and brotherface, dear reader, dear me... "just keep your head above..."