Saying "Yes" to Desire

I've been following up with my Joy Diet work and thinking a lot this past week about desire.  About the things I want to do with my life ~ those things that keep cropping up in my thoughts and pulling me towards...???  Towards what I'm not sure. 

For one thing there are bicycles.  I feel this incredible pull about bicycles. I've been talking about them, thinking about them, seeing photographs of them...not racing cycles,  I'm talking bicycle with a basket...I don't ride a bike anymore, I don't own a bike.  But that's a topic to delve into on another day. 

Then there is photography.  I've been taken with photography since I was a child.  I love taking the photographs as much as I like being in them and whenever I had the opportunity as a child, I would pick up the camera.  If there was no film I would pretend to be snapping different things.  If there was film I was a little more careful so that I wouldn't waste any shots.

I remember once taking a photograph of the cement path at the side of the house. I was probably 5 or 6 and it seemed perfectly logical to me as I liked the way the cracks in the cement made a pattern.  My parents were rather puzzled as to "what" this photograph was until I told them.  Even then they didn't quite understand "why" I would want to take a photograph of the cement.  I'm not even sure I would have been able to explain it.  I just "did it" because it seemed the thing to do.  Children instinctively do what feels right without thinking about it or analyzing it to death.  I believe now that I had a creative vision at a young age.

When I was 12 or 13, I remember having my younger sister and my friend Diana pose in the backyard.  It was late winter, early spring and the trees and shrubs were stark branches. I had this idea that they would look interesting posed among the branches of the shrubs.  I posed first and had my sister take a photograph so that I could show them what I meant.  I'm certain I still have one of those photographs somewhere in my collection. I have no idea why I felt I wanted to do that, where the idea originated.  I wasn't reading fashion magazines and had never heard of Richard Avedon or Francesco Scavullo, but posed models was what called to me. True, it was rough and amateur, yet I know I had the bare bones of something in the making.

Annie Leibovitz

I've puttered with photography over the years and enjoyed the work of Avedon, Scavullo, Annie Leibovitz and Georgia O'Keefe.  I love reading blogs of photographers and looking at images in magazines for the composition, the colour and the subject matter.

Georgia O'Keefe

I'm not sure what this pull will tell me but I'm listening and on Sunday will begin an e-course with photographer/writer Madelyn Mulvaney called "Yes".    It focuses on journal writing and photography.  As soon as I saw it advertised I signed up without a moment's thought -- just did it. Like a child!  Usually I think something through by giving it a little time.  Not with this.  I followed my instincts.  And this line in Madelyn's description, "There is immense possibility in recognizing the beauty and wonder of our daily lives while allowing our desires  a stage in which to flourish and become real" ~ that sold me! I'm anxious to see where this takes me and my desire as I lift this "pebble" that will hopefully take me closer to my hearts desire.  Scribbling a note to self...ask for a new camera for the birthday or Christmas...