Before Cancer

Before Cancer, I had a plan. 

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I was plugging away at my day job, working ridiculous hours, under immense stress- but trying to find every opportunity I could to go out and shoot.  I carried my camera everywhere, always.  I'd swing by the lake after work when I got out early enough.  I'd catch sunsets on the weekends.  Go on photo walks.  I'd bring in dandelions and set up a studio on my desk.  Play with macro shots.  I'd photograph friends, give them family shoots for cheap, engagement photos for coworkers, couple shoots.

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I was determined to someday find my feet as a photographer.  I knew it wouldn't happen right away.  But I also knew that if I just. kept. shooting.  Eventually I'd end up with a body of work that was good enough and focused enough to take into galleries.  To beg for my opportunity.

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And I had a small one.  For a minute.  A friend works as a framer for a small gallery.  I showed them my work.  They commissioned a shoot of a local landmark.  And I even sold a print through them.  They have some of my work for sale- prints of the same landmark.

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I meant to shoot more, and then to go back.  To show her my new work, follow up on what was already there.

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But then the pain started.  The pain that started all of this.  I never got back to shoot the landmark again.  I never even got back to the gallery again.  Pain became my whole life.  I stopped being able to carry my camera- first because of the pain, then because of the exhuastion, then because of the frustration.

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Like everything else in my life, photography took a backseat to whatever was wrong with me.  A year later, and the only shooting I'd managed was a photowalk in October of 2011.  And while I got some really great shots from that walk, it was the only time my camera was genuinely off the shelf in months. 

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So here we are... pain + 2 years.  Almost done with Chemo to kill the Cancer that put all those dreams on the back burner.  And maybe in the last week I've overdone it.  Ok, not maybe.  I have overdone it.  Today was proof of that especially.

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But once I picked that camera back up again, once I got out and heard that click and whir, the tick of the shutter, the beep of the focus.  Once I put it to my eye and framed my world through that small rectangular box- it was like some of that ... wonder... came back to me.

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And yes, today was disappointing.  I didn't get to do or see or photograph as much as I wanted, as much as I'd intended. 

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But what I DID get.  Well-- I haven't lost it.  And that was an important moment.  An important realization.  That I am still a photographer.  I am still an artist.  I still ... SEE the world that way.  It may take time to get my full skill set back, to remember how everything works and functions.  But at the root of it all- I am still good enough.  My work is still good enough- will BE good enough to be a photographer.

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And as I sit awake, as usual the night before chemo, nervous and sleepless- it's nice to feel like those dreams were really just on pause and not put away forever.

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I can still have the future I dreamed about 2 years ago. 

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Because if I can take THESE shots:

When I'm in pain, and exhausted, and frustrated... then when this is all over- I can still do this.  And that's a realization I needed today.