Taking a Deep Breath

Here I go ... the inaugural post of my very first blog. Frightening. I simultaneously yearn to lay bare my soul in its entirety, and fear how that soul will be perceived. Who will read this? What will they make of it? I recall lyrics to "Breathe (2 am)" by Anna Nalick:

I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd
Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
And I know that you'll use them however you want to.

As if attempting to blog was not foolish enough, I recently undertook efforts to learn digital photography. This is perhaps even more frightening than the blogging. I am a writer by profession, of the educational/informational variety. Although I typically write about machinery or software instead of my mind and heart, at least I have a degree and several years of experience that say I know how to write. Photography? Nuh-uh. No education whatsoever, not even recreational classes. I have this lovely Nikon D40 SLR, but little idea what all these dials and buttons do or when to use them. One might think I'd read the book that explains all this, pay some homage to my fellow technical writers. One would be wrong. I am also deeply unsure that I can create visual art - that I have an "eye." I've been a musician; I've been a writer. I have never been an artist. I see photographs that my friends create with ease; they snap the picture, upload it to their computer, crop here and adjust there, and in mere seconds they have a stunning work of art. Like Michaelangelo with a slab of marble, they know what lives within their photos and they remove the material obscuring that life. I doubt I possess this kind of vision, and doubt further that I can be taught such a thing. As my mother said when she didn't want to be pinned down, "We'll see."

Nevertheless, I will grace, or burden, this blog with my fledgling efforts at photography. The rose in this post lives on my only rose bush. My late maternal grandmother had the original plant; my mother took cuttings from it for her own rose bush and later cut from hers to begin mine. The roses are not breathtakingly beautiful, but the bush is remarkably resilient and fertile. And of course, I love them because they remind me of Grandma.

Self-expression. The true purpose of this blog is to let some of the musty air out of me, that a fresh breeze may blow through the dark spaces. I know I can write properly, although whether what I say has value to anyone but myself - that I do not know. I can push a button on a camera, take the resulting photograph, and attempt to carve something meaningful out of it, although the image may not even please me, much less anyone else. Words, photographs ... and music. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a song expresses my feelings better than I can and in significantly fewer words. So, there will be song lyrics quoted here.

Breathe in, breathe out
Tell me all of your doubts
Everybody bleeds this way,
Just the same.
(Mat Kearney)

Well. I have already told you some of my doubts - about this blog, photography, myself. Many more are sure to come. Perhaps Mat is right ... we all bleed this way, just the same. I take a deep breath as I stare at the "Publish Post" button.