Twelve was when all the tragedies happened. When everything came tumbling down, and yet opening up at the same time. When for better or worse, I truly became who I still am today. Thirteen is when it all settled in. It's when I learned that reaching out to strangers meant more to me than those closest to me. That connecting to people at safe distances was really the way to go. It started off with pen pals and zines. Today it's the internet. People whom I happen to run across by complete accident, and yet I find that they are so much like me. To feel a part of someone who doesn't even know that I exist. To read someone's words and think they could be my own. It makes me long to touch these people, and see them across a crowded room, secretly. To walk up and brush against them without them ever realizing that I know all of their secrets. Sometimes I even wish that I could sit in a dark room with them. Quietly. Just to be a part of them and them of me. To share their space. It's these people, these stories, that prod me to keep doing what I do. To put myself out there. To hope that these words find their way somewhere to someone who will know what to do with them. Who will want to brush against me, and sit in a dark room. I know you are out there.... all of you.
P.S. The image above was one that I shot at my 11 year old son's school last night. It was the number on the chair in the auditorium that I sat in as I was waiting for him to perform in his first school band concert. I always feel so awkward at these things. I look out at the crowd, and all of the other parents, and I see so clearly how much I don't belong there. It makes me sad. To see families that are together. Married couples and grandparents, and I'm sitting there alone like a bump on a log. Next to my ex-husband and his wife, no less. But I'd do anything to support my son, so I do these things only for him. And I hope that I have helped provide him with tremendous love, and a decent life, so that once he too turns thirteen in a couple of years, he won't have to go through nearly the heartache that I had to go through at that age. I would do anything to save him from that... <3