My Recycled Life

My Personal Declaration of Independence.

As I stand here in front of my closet, deciding what to wear I seem to be caught up in the array of clothing this small space holds. With each passing day it seems to be harder and harder to decide on what to choose. This day is not unlike any other before it, and more than likely, similar days will follow. Yoga pants and a sweatshirt currently adorn my body like the blank slate of the artist canvas, but what I become depends on the clothes I choose. I find the desire to review these clothes like the pages of a well crafted resume and find myself struggling with the thought that I have failed myself in some way.

I fight the urge not to see these items from my past as failures or mis-adventures of days gone by. Instead, as I stand before them, I realize they represent the textures from my life so far, they carry with them all of the memories from where I have been, like a photo album, alive, hanging in living color there before me.

This thought warms me and I rejoice, standing there in my blank slate state, before these memories, I declare my independence. From what? From me, from the thought that I need to be more than I am today. I free myself to be what makes me happy. To understand that happiness, while not illusive, is ever changing in some of us. I have been told from birth that I could be and achieve anything I wanted to be. It is this thought that carries me forward. I declare, I will at least try to achieve and be as much as I can in this short lifetime of mine. I claim this unique life as my own, and I will encourage others to do the same.

As I run my hand along the row of clothing the textures bring the thoughts and memories they represent to life, accomplishments, one after another. Starting on the left there is my jacket from high school, complete with the letters and medals I earned from the myriad of things I was involved in back then. I ran track, played Basketball, performed in plays then worked backstage and even managed the moving of sets. I sang in the choir and even became a cheerleader, all the while maintaining a solid if not perfect GPA. I never tried drugs, alcohol or got pregnant. All of this before the age of 17. I applied and was accepted to go overseas on a student exchange for an entire year.

The next item in my line of clothing reflects my time in Brazil. A shirt and vest combo that Neusa, one of my host moms, had designed and made just for me to wear to a party. I lived in Brazil, learned Portuguese and successfully wove myself in the fabric of four different families, I even called them mom and dad. I became absorbed in the language and culture of the country and all the while, managing to graduate from my High school back home. I never walked in commencements, went to a prom nor smoked a joint beneath the bleachers after a football game. I did however travel the North Eastern coast of Brazil for a month staying in one hostel after another until my skin was as bronze as the local people. I grew as a person and returned to the US and my small hometown only to realize that my friends had not.

Needing to escape the small town and see more of the US leads us up to the next articles of clothing in my vast collection. My military uniforms. I still have them, hanging there, taking up space but still too important to me to part with. I graduated from boot camp with the Coast Guard, yes we went to boot camp, and became a sailor on a ship. Instead of seeing more of the US and coastline, I deployed to Antarctica and visited places like Hawaii, Fiji, Tasmania and of course Australia in between. I met my husband and married him, and we had three beautiful children along the way, which explains the clothing that comes in size XXL piled in a bin at the very bottom of the closet. I will never again be pregnant, so never again will I be excused to be so large, but I keep them none the less, as a constant reminder that at some point in my life, I accepted weighing 230 lbs.

Next I reach the suits I simply could not part with, because not long after accepting such a large frame for my body, I accepted that I needed a smaller one. Each suit is either a size 2 or a size 4, as size is only a number and varies from store to store. I loved the suites, loved how they felt as I wore them, loved the power they gave me. They are all sorts of styles from pant suits to the brown one with periwinkle blue pinstripes and represent for me a part of my life that I seem to be the furthest from. I started as a Mortgage Loan officer, solving all sorts of problems for people, then once I realized a good deal of the problems were the Realtors I was dealing with, I decided to cut out the middle man and got my license to do that too. I managed an office of more than 10 employees and grew the branch to the largest outside of the home office in 13 states. I hired, I fired and delegated with ease. I stand and marvel at these suits now, the ethereal power they held for me then. They stand apart as a reminder of a life I left behind, a sort of marker of accomplishment, like a trophy, if only known to me.

The next section are the clothes I wore as an artist. Of course bohemian in their style, flowing and rich with color. They represent a phase for me that was and is on going and ever changing. They strike me and call too me as I stand there marveling at their rich textures. In truth I made most of them myself, with my own hands. There is a green skirt, that had spent the first part of its life as a pair of pants, cut, sewn and adorned with layer after layer until it reached the floor around my feet. My favorite is the patchwork sarong type skirt that I purchased from an artist from Venezuela. I spent two years collecting them and each one tells a story, the vendor I met here or the artist who designed this one there.

On the surface all of these clothes are just that, clothes, for one person, although given the variance in sizes, shapes and styles one might be led to believe a whole family of women. I however cherish them, not as the clothes that they are but as the reminders of the life I have led. I did not choose, as some may have guessed to travel one singular path, but instead I have diverged a great number of times. Smaller paths are not represented here, the ones that took me to be a travel agent, the scrubs from my time at the hospital thinking I wanted to be a nurse or even my adventure into jewelry sales. I do not know if the path I am on now will be large, small or run the course of the remainder of my life. I am writing, creating and teaching, all of which I am in love with doing.

So I am talented, of that I have no doubt, but the question becomes, what do I want to be? I gave up on ballerina, – oh round about 4^th grade, when my mother and I realized I had missed some crucial dance lessons. I will never be a doctor, and well, I am not about putting the time into be a lawyer, I have been hard pressed to find one I like anyway. I will not walk on the moon, not unless lunar travel becomes as easy as taking the path from Jersey City to Manhattan and it's fair to say I am not going to be elected to the Presidency of the United States either.

I reconcile these lost achievements with the realization that I never wanted any of these things in the first place. I have in fact seemingly crafted the art of going after the things I have wanted in the past. It has created, for me, anyway, a resume that could kill a small tree. Each path has led to the richness that makes up who I am, for it is in search of the illusive happiness that I explore these divergent paths, not from lack of attention on merely one, but due to an attraction to them all. I can after all do anything I wish, figuring out what that is, well, I will have to get back to you on that. For now, here is where I declare my independence. From what? From me, from the thought that I need to be more than I am today.

I pull the cord on the light and close the door on all of these memories. My clothing for the day cannot be found there, but instead out in the world. I am a blank slate, and I leave my room in search of my next adventure, yoga pants, sweatshirt and all.

One of the things I have struggled with is light and shadown in my shots. Here are some of the first attemps with one of my usual subjects, using a reflective board! (home made of course)

This photo of E. sitting in this chair was taken outside but under a canopy. We positioned the relfective board to "shine" on his face, but had some difficulty becaues the sun kept hiding behind the Ohio overcast sky!

Same thing with this shot. When there is not a lot of sun, the reflection is not so great!

This shot was taken later in the day, you can see the light coming in from the left. The reflective board was postitioned on his right to lighten up the right side of his face.