Journal – 2013: A Year of Changes

For me, 2013 was a year of change. Last year I was living on Vancouver Island and spent new years eve with a wonderful bunch of Canadians that I met camping and who  invited me to live in their home and adopted me as their friend and family. After living life as a gypsy, traveling around camping and living out of my car with myself, my dog, my guitar and my camera, I eventually decided to move to Vancouver Island. I packed up my things, which all ended up getting denied at the Canadian border and sat growing a wonderful selection of mold and fungi in Washington State, and spent the winter in BC on the ocean. In February, the rain had me restless and I had a feeling I needed to assess the damage a temperate rain forest caused to my earthly possessions and need to get started on another good, but forceful, cleansing of my accumulated material goods. A job opportunity came up back in Laramie, Wyoming where I had moved from, and I decided to move back to Laramie and apply to be geologist there where the skies are literally not cloudy all day. Living in a house with no furniture, using my Coleman cooler as my coffee table, my folding camp chairs as seating, slowly bleaching every piece of clothing, tossing away over 50 moldy books, cleansing everything I owned with lysol and bleach, using my bathtub as the bleach center for the largest load of dishes I’ve ever done, and borrowing some nicer clothes from a friend to interview in, somehow I got the job. In June I started life with a ‘real job’ as a geologist for an environmental consulting firm, working 8-5 in an office with a desk phone when I wasn’t doing long hours of field work on a refinery. This was a BIG change from long walks along the rocky ocean shore, focusing on  developing my music and photography, and the free bird lifestyle I had just come from.

Seven months after moving back to Wyoming, re-joining society, and starting a career as a geologist in Laramie, Wyoming, I now live in a rustic house I love built in 1900 with a vegetable garden and I am slowly adjusting to a work schedule. In some regards, my gypsy soul has settled down a bit. My dog Seneca, my beloved hiking and travel partner, passed on this fall after a full live and a face full of grey hair. I miss her dearly, but I am thankful for every moment I got with her. Between the moving, the mold, the starting of a job keeping me busy and other life events, my photography seemed to have fallen by the wayside a bit this year (but I still managed to take at least SOME photos, which I’ve included my 10 favorite above). I spent a lot more time focusing on writing and playing my guitar and singing gigs with a few bands than I probably did taking photographs. Although having a career takes up a lot of my time, freedom, and flexibility, I now have the resources to live comfortably (and maybe get some new lenses!) am now even more driven to balance work and play and still let my creative juices flow. I take satisfaction in knowing that my job is helping the environment in some way, and all the people I work with are wonderful. I won’t be traveling as much now, but thankfully the area I live in is beautiful and has no shortage of hikes and rivers to explore and will help challenge me to always look at my surroundings and my life with a fresh perspective.

2013 truly was a year of change for me. Now that I’ve chosen Laramie as my home base now for a while, I hope to still have adventures in 2014, and this year, now that life is a bit more together, I promise to clear my mind and make time so my photography can thrive, improve, and continue to grow.  Now that I’m back in the USA with more space than what fits in my Jeep, I’m working on getting more prints in stock and gearing up for spring street sales and fairs already. 

Thank you to all of you who continue to share you art, skills, and passions and inspire me to appreciate life and live each moment to the fullest with a smile on my face. I hope we can all continue to learn and grow in 2014 together.  I will strive to keep my new years resolution of making time to create and share beautiful and positive things, whether they be photographs, music, food, or words.

Happy new year and happy holidays from Wyoming!