A sweet surprise about my creative self
Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 6:45PM 
The magazine arrived in the mail in a clear plastic envelope with a canary yellow piece of paper declaring:
Congratulations! You've been published in...mingle
creative ideas for unique gatherings
I'd written an article about Liz Lamoreux's Be Present Retreats for Mingle, a new publication from Stampington & Company. Seeing my words make their national print magazine debut made me smile. The gorgeous photos throughout the 10-page spread were so lush that I couldn't decide if I wanted to hug or lick them.
I'd expected the magazine to arrive in the mail, and I'd expected to like it. But something happened that I did not expect.
As I paged through the article I noticed a smallish pang...of...what was it? Oh. I know: Jealousy.
Wait. How is that even possible? I was looking at my own article!
My words! My byline!
But none of my photos.
Some part of me appears in five of the article's 15 images*: as an elongated shadow on the beach during the magic hour; as a pair of hands holding my Snowcat Diana F+ camera; twice with friends; and once leaning over a table concentrating on my art project. But nowhere was there a photo I could point to as "mine."
I did have the opportunity to include my own photos for the article, but the deadline coincided with the start of my graduating MFA residency, and it was all I could do to see straight at the time. The editor (the lovely Christen Olivarez) had a bevy of fine photos to choose from in a post-retreat Flickr group where other mentors and students had uploaded their images. I'd taken plenty of shots too, but I hadn't taken the time to upload them to the Flickr group. I kept meaning to, of course. Then the article deadline rolled around and I kept meaning to email a few over to Christen. But I was overextended, and something had to drop.
At the time, I was fine with my photos being the thing that dropped.
Fine until I saw the article in print and felt that weird and unexpected mix of pride and disappointment.
And that's when I learned something new about my creative self:
I care about photography.
Specifically, I care about the images I take.
I care about them more deeply than I'd realized.
I care about showing people how I see the world not just through words, but also from behind the lens. And I care about pairing those two together: words and images, side-by-side.
As I looked at the lovely images in the article, I realized something else: Some of my photos are just as lovely as the ones I was drooling over. What a sweet surprise: to realize that in a few years I've gone from being the "I-can't-take-a-good-photo" kind of gal to a "Some-of-my-photos-are-truly-beautiful" kind of gal.
I'm not sure which is the bigger or the sweeter surprise: To realize that I care about my photography, or to realize that I have photographs worth caring about.
As all of this unfurled in my mind, I realized I was actively transforming envy into inspiration, something I first wrote about more than two years ago now.
I'm glad to have my words in Mingle. I'm also glad for this opportunity to learn about something that matters to me, not through rejection, but through the gentler means of my own unknowing neglect.
Over the past five years I've gotten to know my creative self far better than ever before. I thought we were quite well-acquainted. I love that there are still surprises to be had. I wonder what else I'll learn in the next five years.
(*The lovely images in the article were taken by Liz Lamoreux, Vivienne McMaster, and Kate Inglis, all photographers who inspire me.)
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