resolved

I am far more comfortable taking pictures than I am being a subject in one.  I always seem to be able to see that awkward feeling in every image of myself, so this caught me by surprise today.  I found it in my photos from a stream of pictures taken by my mom earlier this summer.  Even though it's practically painful to share, I'm going to do it anyway because I like it.  I like it because my mom took it and I like it because I look like I am at that kind of peace that I'm always searching for.  I am spared, at least momentarily, from self-consciousness -- not living from the outside looking critically on. Instead, living freely, from the inside out.

“Yet still there are those special secret moments in our lives, when we smile unexpectedly –when all our forces are resolved. … When we know those moments, when we smile, when we let go, when we are not on guard at all — these are the moments when our most important forces show themselves.”
--Christopher Alexander

Thanks, Mama.  This reminds me of all of my years of irrepressible leaping and twirling  -- or as I like to call it, dancing:).