It's a new day...

©brokenimagery

My travels here in Boston have surpassed any expectations I had at all. Reconnecting with a cousin whom I hadn't seen in 20+ years- an age gap that is meaningless and leaves no room for judgment on either sides. Shared interest, laughter, heritage, and even some struggles. I have much to learn from this woman, and already have taken so much in already. I don't know what it is, the word that I can use, the image that I can paint to express the grandiose feeling I have had by this connection...family is important, relationships are important, and even more- maintaining them. As we get older, and grandparents pass away, as does our ability and willingness to put the work that continues these connections...we become distant, distracted, busy- life carries us away with it's hectic days and the ups and downs...before we know it, we are in a completely different world.

My lens has been cautious on my travels here in the North East. Even before beginning my trip, I was fractured, broken like an old clay pot left out in the midst of a thick hot summer. I became someone else. Someone I was not proud of...I allowed circumstances that I had no control over whisk me away to a land full of inappropriate actions, a messy heart, and a mind dipped into a world of confusion and a misleading path. 

As the day approached for my departing travels, as did the reality of what it was that transpired over the past six or seven months. Growth beyond expectancy, turmoil, elation, love, and then another crash. I laid on my bed, about six hours before my flight would lift the grounds from the Portland Airport, vacant in thought and emotion, and paralyzed in the reality of the knowing what my leaving may become. A journey of accepting chapter two of this thing I call life.

I haven't shot as many images here in Beantown as I expected myself to. I'm okay with that. This retreat became a completely different outcome than what I had anticipated, and that's a good thing. However, I must say, when I state that I haven't taken as many images here as I had thought I would, I mean beyond the 2,000 something photos that I have already snapped. Most importantly, my heart has captured the best pictures yet in my life. Images that will only bare witness to one person; me.

So, as my time wraps up here in Boston, I slowly take a deep breathe, with eyes open wide, and rest in the fact that everything will work itself out...that I am not defined of the judgments by others, nor do I bare the weight of unknown misspoken truths that were dressed in my name. Live, love, and let go.