Brave Love

I'm writing you tonight from my hotel room in Seattle – en route to a four-night stay in Alaska. I hadn't really given any thought to what I was going to write today for this post, as I've spent the better part of the day running around like crazy. It could have been about the usual stuff of Valentine's Day... like how bitchy I've been all week leading up to today. Or how I went into Walgreens yesterday for some picture hanging wire and was assaulted by the pink and red décor that vomited all over the store interior. Or about how sad I was when I woke up this morning or how hard I've tried to stay off of Facebook all day.

I am lucky that I've spent most of today at the airport, lugging around an ungodly amount of camera gear and luggage. After all, this trip is with my mother-in-law and her mother... which is very sacred to me. Two generations of his family and me. Our “Valentine's Dinner” was not exactly fancy. Some cheese and fruit in a tiny cardboard container with a plastic cup of white wine – some 30,000 ft in the air halfway between Texas and Washington. But that suited me just fine, nothing traditional. 

But what I really wanted to share is what my evening was about. And just why I am up at 3am Texas time still writing this. Once we finally got into our hotel room and settled in, I called one of my closest friends. It wasn't to share the usual laughter or the depression of the day's events. It wasn't for me to cry about how much I miss my late-fiance. But instead, she opened up to me about some very deep emotional stuff that she has been burying from most everyone in her life for a long time now. So much so that it has led to some very dark thoughts.

As she shared, I remained solid and unwavering. I listened to everything she had to say, and I assured her that all her feelings – even the suicidal thoughts – were okay. I mean hell, if anyone understands what it's like to not want to live anymore, it's widowed people – am I right?

I did not judge her. I did not try to fix her. I just loved her. And reminded her very strongly that no darkness inside her could be enough to chase me away. I will be here always to sit next to her in there as long as we need to until we can find that first pinprick of light together. And so we sat, together, for over an hour... until I began to hear the tone in her voice shift ever so slightly. Until I began to hear the weight in her voice just a hair lighter than before. Even manged to make her laugh a few times in there too.

After we got off the phone, I hopped in the shower and kept thinking of it all. I was so surprised at how calm I was. How unshakable my dedication was to this friend. And how well I was able to listen and make them feel safe and heard. The person I was before I met My late-fiance could have never done this. The girl I was then would have been so scared by the vulnerability of the situation that she wouldn't have been able to hear that friend. The person I was before Drew died did not have enough of her own darkness to be able to strut into someone else's so fearlessly either.

I started to realize... Drew was the first person in my life to model for me that kind of love. Real and deep and unconditional love. Always he was solid, and reliable, and steadfast as a friend. And over time, without my knowing it, I began to infuse those same qualities in myself. This happened even more so after his death - when others sat with me in my darkness, I learned again how to better do it. 

And suddenly tonight, I realized that perhaps I have more of his qualities in me now than I ever knew. And I saw what a truly vital gift he gave me in his death. I chose the possibility of pain for the privilege to love. It did not matter that I could be hurt if this dear friend one day chooses to end her life. Because loving her matters more. Because she matters that much. And because of his life, and his death, I was able to be there for her in a way no one else has been able to.

So this Valentine's Day for me was not about the chocolates or the flowers I didn't get. Or the person who wasn't here to hold or kiss. Yes, those things were there – and they were sad. But more so, it was about being able to give someone real love – deep, unconditional, open-hearted love – and meet them in their most vulnerable and fearful place. This year, Valentine's Day was not about what I do not have, but about what I have to give still. It was about Brave Love.

The Healing Cycle

"On the Backs of the Wild" ©Sarah Treanor 2012

This past week something really big happened for me. It was one of those things that originally came out of nowhere, yet will be something I will remember for the rest of my life. It all began almost a year ago, with an email. The woman writing to me was a poet, and she came across my photography online and wanted to use one of my images for the cover of her first poetry book. I was astounded. Somehow… in ALL OF THE INTERNET… this stranger from Utah found MY photos and fell in love with one of them for her cover. Was I dreaming?

And it wasn't just any photo, it was one of my favorite photos that I took in the year that took him. A simple, serene image of the soft slope of a horse's back just after a heavy rain… the sky still melancholy with a blanket of clouds. I can still remember the day. It was fall. I had moved down to central Texas from Dallas to live with his family on their ranch. It had poured all morning and the horses were covered in rain and dirt from running wildly through the pastures. Horses always know how to play in the rain, they never grow up in that respect - a lesson we could learn from.

It was just months after he died and the only thing in my world that made me still feel alive was to get behind my camera. There I could search out mysterious other worlds. Worlds where my reality didn't feel so heavy. Sometimes worlds where it didn't exist at all. Looking back, I am astounded at the photos that came out of me during this time. They were drastically different from anything I had shot before. Operating entirely by my broken heart - suddenly all of my photos were like portraits of my grief. This one in particular felt so very close to that sacred space inside me where my deepest grief lay. The quiet solitude of this image mirrors the feeling of my own solitude so precisely. I'm only now beginning to grasp that, two years later.

So by now you're wanting to know where this story goes. I've wandered enough. I first mentioned to you that something big happened this past week… and it was this: After almost a full year of patiently hoping that my photo would be the final one the author would choose. After sometimes months of not hearing anything and wondering. And then months more after my photo was chosen for the publishers and designers to complete everything and get it into print… after all of that… this past week, a package arrived in the mail. From Utah. I zipped open the brown packing and there it was. The image that says everything that was inside my soul after he died... singing gracefully and proudly from the cover of a book. And not just a book, but a book of poetry - another deep love of mine (And the poems inside are breathtaking, by the way. I've read a dozen or so this week and many have moved me to tears with their beauty).

I'm not certain I can put into words what this feels like for me. It isn't closure, I don't really believe in that concept. I think it is something like purpose or meaning or maybe understanding. For the author wrote to me this: "I really can't express this properly -- I had no idea how beautiful this book could be until it was realized with your photograph on the cover. I'm so proud of this book & the image reflects the exact kind of beauty & solitude & mourning & serendipitous joy that I hope it contains in its pages. Thank you, thank you, thank you." And there it is… yes, an understanding perhaps that I never had before. Something that I created when I was in the very darkest and most painful place in my life has somehow gone on to live its own new life. And it has its own entirely different purpose now too - to uplift the breathtaking work or another artist. And forevermore, this poet and I will be inextricably linked by the creations that we have both made out of our own lives and our own pains. It is an eerie and darkly gorgeous thing I could have never imagined would happen in my life.

I didn't expect to have some profound lesson come out of this venture. But there it is… this understanding that maybe that is what we're supposed to do with all of this pain in life. We're supposed to express it. And give it away so that it can become something that uplifts or supports the life of another. In this way, it can be transformed into something - transformed actually, back into love - which is what our pain was in the first place. That is one powerful healing cycle.

Maybe it's something we create - like this photo or a song or a painting - or maybe its as simple taking the time to talk about our pain openly, so that it can help another feel less alone. When we express it openly we are giving our pain a chance to grow wings and soar - and to give a gift to someone else's journey along the way.

It is precisely the kind of impact I have hoped for his life and his death to have since that dreadful day one. And slowly, as I begin to heal a little more, and as I keep expressing my pain in any and every way that feels right, I am starting to feel like he and I are building a legacy together… one in which he is teaching me the lessons I could not have learned any other way. Lessons that are vital in helping me to be a part of others lives in ways I never would have been able to before. And that part of this dreadful journey… I would not trade for anything.

I don't say it enough - but thank you all for allowing me space in your Sunday to give my pain. And thank you for writing back to me with yours so that we can keep this healing cycle going together. ~ Much Love