Changing Landscapes

We aren’t the same people we were when we first started dating.

The changing landscapes we have experienced together have shaped us into better versions of ourselves.

Double Exposure Porch Portrait, Digital Collage, 2019

Sometimes I wonder if the younger me would even recognize who I am now, but I think a part of me always knew these aspects of myself I needed to see.

My Body, My Home, Digital Collage, 2019

“…Sometimes my own body seems like a home through which successive people have passed like tenants, leaving behind memories, habits, scars, skills and other souvenirs.”

-Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost

Looking Within, Digital Collage, 2019

“Home, I said.

 In every language there is a word for it.

 In the body itself, climbing

 those walls of white thunder, past those green

 temples, there is also

 a word for it.

 I said, home.”

- Mary Oliver, “The River”

Searching the Sea for Secrets, Digital Collage, 2019

Its a strange feeling to split your heart and home into multiple places and feel the distance between them.

Yet, its because of that distance that I’ve been forced to grow. Sometimes it is ugly, lonely and depressing. And sometimes it is a gift, like the surreal feeling of being dwarfed by mountains or a never ending sea; to lose count of the gradients of green swatches that run off, winding around a curve.

The Green Places I’ve Lived, Digital Collage, 2019

As I’ve learned the effects of different environments on my psyche, I’ve found its greenery that rejuvenates my soul.

Switzerland’s mountains and lakes reminded me of how much I loved living in the Pacific Northwest, near water and forever chasing a clear view of the iconic Mount Rainier, Washington’s active volcano standing majestically 14,410 feet above sea level.

What places have changed you?