don’t read this
Not doing so well tonight.
The other day, I was trying to explain to my friend the reason I enjoy photography. I said that looking at life through the viewfinder of my camera enables me to see the world in a different way. I suppose that when life gets too overwhelming, too frightening, too difficult, too muddy, I can always find something beautiful with my camera that makes everything seem worth it. I can’t ever seem to clean my toilets on a regular basis and my kids won’t stop yelling, but look at the way that ladybug is perched so gently on the tip of the blade of grass. It is so perfect in it’s beautiful simplicity, and it centers me.
I also told him that I use photography to show other people the way that I see the world. I can really relate to the things Misha wrote about beauty in her last post. She said, “I am so good at loving people. Trust me. No one person can walk by me slow without me immediately seeing something beautiful in them.” I feel like I know how to do that, as well. I tried to express that in this post awhile back, but I think I came off less eloquent than Misha, and more “obsessive/stalker” like. What I was trying to say then, is that I notice things. And the things that I notice are sometimes obscure, sometimes strange, but I find beauty in them. And I want to share that. So I try to photograph it. And tonight I realized that capturing a picture of something beautiful comforts me. Because it makes me feel like I can’t be all that messed up if I can create something as beautiful as this.
Unfortunately, I just realized that Van Gogh created some of the most beautiful art out there, and then he went on to cut off his ear.
Crap.
ANYWAY, what I am trying to say here is that through photography (and writing and painting and other random things I create) I search for beauty in the world that I feel a lack of within myself. I see it everywhere but in me. I spent an entire therapy session last week bawling about the horrible things I say to myself when I look in the mirror. I am so tired of it all. I am so tired of feeling ugly and worthless and undesirable. Tired of feeling less-than and clumsy and awkward. I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t know if I’m going to publish this post. I just had to get it out.
It’s so freaking hard to unlearn the things that we taught our brains when they were still all mushy and adolescent and impressionable. I wish I had the secret formula to doing it, to knowing in your heart and soul what you can identify logically (ie, yes, I am a person of worth). I don’t. I know that it has to happen eventually, that all the prayers and work and tears can’t be for nothing. So. Yeah. That wasn’t helpful, so much. But you’re not alone in this fight.
Comment by Lauren — October 15, 2006 @ October 15, 2006 at 7:41 am
I disobeyed and read it. Put me in time out.
I could write pages of all the lovely things I see in you. I will pray that each day you discover something new and beautiful in you too.
Comment by Karen — October 15, 2006 @ October 15, 2006 at 9:17 am
You are fragile yet stubbornly tenacious in your will to overcome your fears of yourself. That is what I think is so amazing about you.
Comment by Jenn — October 15, 2006 @ October 15, 2006 at 9:54 am
Pardon my language, sis, but fuck anything that implies you’re not beautiful. I wish you knew. I wish I had the words to tell you how shining and full of light you are…
Comment by Megan — October 15, 2006 @ October 15, 2006 at 10:00 am
I have a hard time with this myself. I am so good at uplifting others, but can’t seem to do the same thing for me. But I will tell you what I try to do and what I try to share with my children….
Try seeing yourself through God’s eyes. He made you. He had you already formed in his mind before you were even conceived. And God does not make mistakes. You are exactly the way God wanted you. Therefore, you are beautiful.
Hard to do. But I have to tell myself that alot. You are one of the purest souls I’ve ever known and your beauty is not only on the outside (gorgeous!) but you are so beautiful on the inside. So giving. So caring. So radiant.
Comment by Queen Beth — October 15, 2006 @ October 15, 2006 at 10:57 am
I am always so excited when I meet someone who is as articulate and as honest as you are in your writing and photograph. Thank you for sharing your beauty with the strange world of blogdom. We are lucky to know the things in your heart expressed here. (And from what I hear from Misha you are just as lovely in person.) Take care.
Comment by jules — October 15, 2006 @ October 15, 2006 at 11:01 am
(actually, English IS my first language. I meant to add a “y” on “photograph”)
Comment by jules — October 15, 2006 @ October 15, 2006 at 11:05 am
I admire your bravery in sharing these feelings with everyone out there in cyberspace. I have struggled with depression since I was a young girl. Everytime I put it onto words on my blog I delete it. Then I only include the happy-mom posts. I respect you for putting it all out there.
Comment by Alaina — October 15, 2006 @ October 15, 2006 at 3:26 pm
Karli, my beautiful lighthouse friend. The one with the prophetic eye and the tender heart. ‘ll keep you from cutting off your ear, if you keep me from cutting off mine?
Comment by misha — October 15, 2006 @ October 15, 2006 at 7:29 pm
When I read the things you write, it seems like you are creating snapshots, a writing photograph. They are beautiful pictures of someone who seems beautiful to me - inside and out. You have such amazing insight into yourself and I thank you for sharing these pictures of you in this way. Keep photographing.
Comment by Morning Glory — October 15, 2006 @ October 15, 2006 at 7:47 pm
I’ve been lurking in the background for a few weeks now, about the same time I found this poem. It has surfaced in my vision four times in the past two weeks, so I will share it with you.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
attributed to…Nelson Mandela
A personal note to Oprah Winfrey from Marianne Williamson
May you begin to shine from the love of God that is inside you.
Comment by Judi — October 16, 2006 @ October 16, 2006 at 5:50 am
That’s why you just surround yourself with other people who can see it in you and anyone with half a brain or half a heart can. I cannot tell you how many people love you. We do.
Comment by daring one — October 16, 2006 @ October 16, 2006 at 3:48 pm
Oh, Karli… I know that look-in-the-mirror-I’m-worthless-thoughts. It’s enough to make you cry out in uncontrollable sobbing.
At a recent Beth Moore conference she expanded on this verse:
Ephesians 3:14-20
For this reason I kneel before the Father,…. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your [heart] through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power,…to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us…
I pray that you will be able to grasp (the ungraspable) how wide, how long, how high, how deep (the immeasurable) His love for you. Past that to your mirror and memorize it, my friend. God’s word is a double-edged sword to the enemy’s lies about you. It is your weapon in those times of defeat. Ohhhh, how I want to just squeeze-you-love-you-hug-you.
There’s a possibility of me coming to Seattle in February or March. I’d love to see you.
Comment by April — October 16, 2006 @ October 16, 2006 at 10:46 pm
It’s chemical, it’s horomonal, it isn’t rational, but it isn’t rare. I think creative people tend to suffer from it more often. There is no answer but to hang on and know that the sun will be out again, and when it is, you want to look back and be proud of how you handled it. God Bless You.
Comment by Suzanne Temple — October 22, 2006 @ October 22, 2006 at 4:13 pm