ajmer, rajasthan, india; august 2009.

I find myself titling many documents, many pages in my journal this way these days. It’s been a musing sort of few weeks for me.

Because you see, the workshop provided much more than tehcnical photographic lessons (though not to lessen the value of those skills – learned so much in so little time!);  it provide a significant period of time during to just focus on one thing, write and think and write some more on it.  Immerse myself it in.

Furthermore, beyond the actual intended purpose of the workshop – telling a story through photos and words – it made me pause, take a break from the hectic existence I had created for myself this summer, working on far too many projects at once, bouncing back and forth between the assignments on my seemingly never-ending to-do list.  And while I like to think I thrive on fast-paced environments, no one can thrive on juggling seven tasks at once.  As a result, I ended up shortcutting them all.

So here was this beautiful break built into my summer, full of excitement, certainly, but also of long, hot afternoons to be filled with naps and journal entries and poetic musings (that word again!).  There’s something about the midday Indian sun that makes one want to curl up in a chair behind a brightly-colored curtain and just take down the random thoughts scurrying through your head.  Or I found it so, at least.

And it was wonderful.  I loved the time to breathe, to examine what I was doing, question why I was doing it, and see how everything in my life was fitting together, or not.  This past year I had worked myself into working overdrive, always with a baseline of stress that I felt in the pit of my stomach, nearly on a day-to-day basis.   And believe it or not, that’s not entirely pleasant.

So what does this all mean for the start of senior year?  I have no idea.  But there’s little things from India that I don’t want to let slip away, the feeling, the moments that I experienced there that I’m loath to let go of.  We’ll see if these are things that I can maintain back in the go-go-go schedule of school life.  Or, if maybe, I can lessen the go-go-go-ness of it all.

I rarely use this forum for personal introspection, mainly because I feel a little strange thinking out loud in such a public space. But I’m hoping to change that, at least a bit. Not to turn this little blog into a site where I spew out day-to-day banalities that I doubt would interest anyone, but rather to just get myself to question what I’m doing more often, to pause for reflection instead of just checking one task off and moving onto the next one.  To put up unfinished ideas, let them stew and develop.  And maybe even (if I’m lucky!), start conversations.

If you’ve not taken a few days to pause and reflect and re-evaluate lately, I highly recommend doing so.  And fall just so happens to be an excellent time to do so!  Find some beautiful late-afternoon light, a pretty journal, and pen that makes you want to write with it, settle yourself into a cozy chair and go at it.  And let me know what you find.