I normally hate Halloween but I liked this one a lot.
10-31-13 . Nikon One Touch, Leica something point and shoot . expired Provia 1600, Provia 400 . lab developed, scanned at home
Sharon McKeeman Blog » Blog
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Yearly Archives: 2013
We got dressed up all fancy and went to a ball…
It was a good night. That lasted until the next morning
11-15-13 . Pentax 67 . Nikon One Touch . Polaroid 250 Land Camera . TriX 400 . Fuji FP3000 . developed and scanned at home, like ninjas I didn’t take the pictures of myself, Jesse did. And we paid the digital prom picture guy to take a polaroid of us in front of his backdrop, it’s kinda blurry but he liked holding the camera.
I can’t possibly express how thankful I am for our friendship with this family and our adventures together. We have learned so much from them, about family, about photography, about life. Every time we visit them on the mountain our souls are refueled. Our kids call it their mountain, and it is a glorious one. I never could have dreamed up the adventures, accidents, fun and bits of life we have come to share, and I am so thankful. I am also terrified to share images that I have made with them. The more I forge into film the more I realize the vastness of all I have to learn. These photos are far from perfect. But I made them on a piece of film inside of a heavy old camera that I dragged around a mountain with kids running everywhere. Then my husband developed them in our friend’s sink and I scanned and edited them at home. They are tangible and real. As imperfect as they are, they are the only way I could come close to doing justice to these moments. I will continue to work, striving to improve as I make images on film, and as I do I will share this journey. It’s not one I had to think about, it’s one I have to take. Spring 2013 . Hasselblad 500cm . TriX 400 developed and scanned at home
I need for him to still carry weight four years after he left this earth. I long to look at him, to hold something tangible of him in my hands. I thought maybe I could post a picture of him, but they are too painful, too sensational. So I took out my camera and examined the evidence of his coming and going. This is a document of missing him
The pot I bought in art school at a ceramic sale, that we carried his ashes to the ocean in.
The bag that they gave us his ashes in.
I wished later that I would have kept one bit of his bone. A few months after Joshua died, David found this shell at the beach where we let go his ashes. It reminded me of the bits of bone and ash they gave us in the bag and so I kept it.
His hospital bracelet.
His feet.
The twelve rocks I picked up when I last walked with him full inside of me. Twelve rocks that I gathered on the journey, unknowing of what lay ahead. Twelve rocks that I place to remember the good God has done, just like Joshua did in that ancient book.
Joshua Dash McKeeman exists. He was born on October 30th at 11:50pm. He weighed 8 lbs 12 oz and was 22 in long. He wasn’t breathing when he was born, and I think a lot about that short time with his body here on earth. Last week my friend’s mom told me to “not have any bad imaginations.” I was about to drive down a mountain, which embarrassingly enough, I was terrified to do. But I kept my eyes fixed on the white line beside me and my husband’s tail lights in front of me, and I made it to the bottom safe and sound and better for it. I have “bad imaginations” about the night we lost Joshua all the time. The problem is those bad imaginations are true. He was born ten minutes before Halloween, and the nurse who held me down while I birthed him was dressed as Hannah Montana. His hands were cold and his lips were bruised. I could not see his eyes, but his nose was the cutest one I have ever seen. His forehead was soft when I kissed it and his fingers kept flicking against mine. Still there is a deeper truth and that is him strong and whole, running deeper in and further up, alive as our Maker meant us to be. We are better for having him, better even for losing him. We have woken up to this great drama God is writing and been blessed since with a blond baby to soothe our aching hearts. It is four years of missing him. The dreams started a few days ago. Asleep, I would find myself deaf or blind, without an arm, or missing a leg. I am sure there are professionals that could tell me what these dreams mean, but I do not need them. I know. He is absent, as clearly felt each day as if I were missing a limb. I’m not saying those losses are the same, but in a way I wish they were. Somewhere deep inside wishes his absence could be seen clearly every moment as if a part of my body were gone, too awkward to speak of like a missing eye or mangled fingers. And this need grows greater as the day I lost him draws near again. At first four years ago, I was caught up in shock, grief and survival. Then I felt too imperfect a mother to mourn a child lost, ungrateful if I didn’t just focus on the three I had before me. But fours years has given space to just miss him and that feels like a safe place to sink into. The more I rest in that empty space he left, the more “bad imaginations” cease. I don’t have to remember, question and remain in all that surrounded losing him. I can exist in that space where he does not. An empty place here on earth, part of my body missing, an ache in my heart that will only be healed after this life. This writing is a scar, bared for all to see. He existed here on earth, kicking and dancing inside of me. I do not mourn for his life. It is already more rich and full than mine in the presence of His maker, but I can just miss him, and that is enough.
My friends loaned me a documentary of Sally Mann to watch. It had life, death and some nakedness in it. I thought it was funny when she took pictures of her husband clipping his toe nails while their dog licked his leg. Of course the dog wore a raw scar on his side. I’m not sure what the photo was about, I’m probably not clever enough to know. She’s truly captivating and known as a bold, courageous artist, but she seemed afraid to me. There was one thing that I grabbed hold of in that video. One thing really, that grabbed hold of me. It has me in its’ clutches now, and I don’t think it will ever let go. Not her brazen images of death, or her excruciatingly intimate portraits of youth. It wasn’t even something she had made or said herself. She quoted a line from a book that I should have already read. I have no excuse as an artist for never having read it, except that maybe I wasn’t ready to hear this line until that very moment last weekend. Maybe if I had read it before I would have skipped over it, discounting it as something I had already seen in a book once. I wonder if you will hear these words? “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” She spoke these words from A Moveable Feast by Hemingway. I’m sure they are in most writers’ self help books. I’m sure there is an entire brand of guru giving inspiring conferences based on this truth. But I had never heard these words in this way, and for me they have little to do with writing.
My first drawing teacher in art school was a bear of a man. He shuffled when he walked and showed us how to sharpen our pencils just so. I loved him dearly. He was obsessed with mark making, the putting of pencil to paper, making a mark. It was not enough for him that we made areas of light and dark on our page. The shading had to be built of a myriad of marks, painstakingly laid. The image was nothing without the process. He could always tell if the marks were authentic. And he had no patience for trying to cover up a mistake. Erasing was to him the ultimate beauty, a tearing back down to find what we had already built. Every mistake a chance to go deeper, to find if the layers were true. To dance and smear a fog of charcoal across the paper, spend hours laying line upon line, cutting back through with the white of the eraser, nothing was a waste to him. The only sin was a frantic covering up, bearing down upon a seeming mistake in order to disguise it. This he hated, this alone would draw anger quick from the towering teddy bear of a man. His soft step and and easy way would draw up solid against this disrespect. Disrespect of the process, and of the paper that welcomed us and gave us ground to create the image. He would yank the charcoal or pencil from our hands and grieving tell us how the paper was ruined, it had no integrity left, it’s woven strands broken and mashed under our impatient hands. No mistake was to be bullied in his classroom. He would crank the old windows open wide for sun and air to bathe us, pulling our drawings close to the light to inspect every line the pressure of our pencil made, judging if it was true. Was it building, and describing, or was it tearing back down, purifying and defining? Either were fine, but a deceitful covering up was not acceptable – that was senseless destruction. We grew more afraid of his displeasure than of letting our flaws and failures show. As long as we were honest with the marks we had made, as long as we were brave enough to dive back down through the layers with our gum erasers, then he was always redeeming. There was no way to fail in his class if we did not disguise. He required only that each mark be made with every bit of passion our souls could muster. Each mark layed as if it was our signature even if it was to be buried, a foundation for a thousand others. “…write one true sentence.”
The same friends loaned me another documentary. This one on Richard Avedon. It blew my mind, his images are mighty, indescribably powerful. But I wondered – If he had to trick his subjects to get to truth… Did he write a true sentence? “Write the truest sentence that you know.”
I read a lot of Donald Miller. I have never met him but I think he gets me, and I get him. Except for the part about my story. The part about story in general I get. God’s story, the story of the world He created, the story of humanity, history. Got it, it’s an epic written by an all powerful, all knowing, loving author who is far beyond our comprehension but cares about our heartbreaks and the flowers on our windowsill. A story where the creator comes into our mess, offering us new life, His life. A story of good news, that’s made up of innumerable individual stories. Yep all that I believe and I love the no holds barred, irreverent way he writes about it. But when I get down to my story, that’s when I have a hard time. I know there are workshops and conferences for these things. If I were to break down and go to one, I could have all the little subplots in my life figured out so they would support a big, beautiful plot arch reaching from now until whenever I die. Then I would be assured I could live a meaningful life, once scene at a time. Then I would be a whole and healthy, fully redeemed character in my correct place in God’s story. But what if I just can’t quite believe that? I just can’t do what him and all the other writers, speakers, pastors, artists etc want me to – micromanage my story until I find fulfillment. They seem to be pointing to a path that doesn’t feel true to me. With so many people out there, if every scene in our story matters and if we can write these scenes in a way that fits the narrative we want, it feels like maybe they will only matter to ourselves. And if they only matter to ourselves then they will be forgotten and can’t make a difference to others. A friend told me that we waver between Pride and Despair. Always pride and despair hot on our trail. Maybe the problem of thinking of my life as a story is that it makes me want to flesh out my character, set the scene a bit better, understand the journey fully. A story needs details – details like money, success, prestige, a nice house, the correct number of children. When we read a story there are lots of sentences, we know what the words mean. But I have tried to write a God approved story for myself. It didn’t work. I can’t even co author one page with Him it seems. From the moment I get up in the morning my day is off track compared with what I think would make a “good, humble, unselfish, productive” story. The minute I make a calendar or a to do list, life and death crash in with other plans. As soon as I read a book that explains everything, all new questions crop up, mend one relationship and another one breaks. In trying to write a story, the only true word I am left with is GRACE. I don’t want to write my story with God because I am afraid to get distracted by the details I can add.
Instead of trying to sort out my story, I would rather write a true sentence with my Creator. This makes more sense to me, I am one sentence in His story. I can’t possibly wade through it all, navigate the land mines or construct what should be. I can only ask… Is this the truest sentence that I know?
I have been making marks. Pencil to paper, babies born, dishes washed, laundry done, meals made, lessons taught, lullabies sung. Mark making upon mark making, the layers build upon the humble marks. It is an ordering of chaos, books read, images made and my thoughts whirl. I sense the image growing dim, too many marks to see. A slip across the paper makes me want to crumple the sheet and start again. I remember my drawing teacher “Honor the grounds on which you built these marks, respect the hours you have labored. But don’t be afraid to cut back into it, removing, clearing space to see.” I could never get back to pure white, all the ghosts of marks made still floating on the paper, making the finished drawing all the more lovely. White space giving place to breath, defining what I am left with – the image I have been seeking since I first began putting pen to paper.
One true sentence.
If I am being honest I will say that I wish my sentence contained a beautiful home in the perfect location. I wish that my sentence held more money, recognition, an easy life, understanding, a bit of ego, philanthropy, mother of the year awards, a career, a better body, perfect children, the future all wrapped up with a pretty bow on top, etc, etc… But I know He cares if the sparrows are hungry. He makes sure the flowers are clothed. So how much more you and I? If I can let go all the story, just make the marks, and cut through to the one sentence he meant for me to write – The one line I am to speak in His epic play, the few notes I am to sing in His grand symphony – Then I am free. Free to do this one thing and do it well in Him. I know others, only a few, who are speaking their truest sentence into existence. They give me hope that I can also.
My one true sentence, the truest one I know lies naked with my husband. Gives birth to four boys. Moves faithful together with them. And when it comes to creating with my Maker, all I can do is simply ask – Is this the truest that I can speak for Him? Is this the line he made me to be in His epic? There is nothing else, no matter how much I would like to write it into my story.
images from early summer 2013 . Hasselblad 500/cm . expired Portra 800 |
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