I’ve been thinking a lot about pictures. And the images I choose to accompany my stories. A story doesn’t feel complete without the perfect image. Like a trigger on a gun, it is next to impossible to force my finger to click publish without the right image. It feels like I'm killing something.
I was thinking last night about how my words come first and the picture comes second. So, I wondered what if I had the pictures first. Could I tell a story with these pictures I, we, share on Facebook and convey a theme. Could I learn how to make it into a movie, with music, and captions?
My friend Elizabeth once told me about a writing teacher, Wendy Palmer, who spoke about how hard it was to edit your words. To take things out. She referred to it as killing your darlings. And Wendy pants actually borrowed that phrase from William Faulkner. I found this fascinating, and true, to an extent.
Like any living thing, I am always evolving. My words change and edit themselves. This is the fascinating thing about blogs. You can publish and the edit and revise and republish. It's a body of work that is never done. I'm not entirely married to any of my words. Or mother to them. I can let them ago. Knowing which ones are dispensable is the trick. But again, I can bring'em back if I so choose.
That said, holie shmolies I felt Faulkner's vibe so much more deeply when editing pictures in this little video ditty. Removing pictures of faces and people I love was so much harder to me than cutting my words ever were.
I'm always so surprised how full circle my life has come. It hit me sitting at Chili's with my friend Kristin from 3rd grade. Her sister taught me to shave my legs. Now, 30 years later, we sit in a Chili's and talk about marriage and the loss of a child and love and potato skins. After not seeing each other for 20 years in between. And in this movie with her little boy Michael.
People from 20 years ago have come back into my life in a very significant way. My friends are very supportive in a direct way, but they support me in other, more indirect, but just as important ways too. They live in such noble ways, even under the most horrific of tragedies. The manner in which they choose to live, inspires and teaches me. Those are the images and the pictures I try to capture. Whether it be via pictures, or words, or my everyday actions.
Turns out, having the pictures first was easy. For the sheer fact that I know my friends and their stories. They were already written.
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