Photoshoot of the Hankins Homestead

"Of all of our inventions for mass communication, pictures still speak the most universally understood language." -- Walt Disney

Little Woman

I was really put out a couple of weeks ago. I still am, a little bit. Everyone was, and is, leaving. All of my friends are going away to college, and I'm just... here. I feel a bit left behind. It's not that I don't want to go away; to have great adventures; to go to school, gain knowledge, and become "educated". But somehow---probably because I haven't the slightest idea of what to do with myself---I feel caged up. Like I can't go anywhere or do anything, even if I want to.

My mom told me I have always been slow to except change. I'd go as far as to say that I'm afraid of it. Boy---one more thing my "fearless" self is afraid of. But why? Why am I afraid? It's ridiculous to fear what is inevitable. Change will follow me around wherever I go in life, and really, it's a good thing. Right now, I'm just waiting for what will come of the change I'm experiencing in this present chapter of my life. Waiting, waiting, waiting...

Yet I don't feel any better. I hate waiting, especially when I don't know what I'm waiting for.

Watching "Little Women" with Emily last night, I felt as if Jo---the main character---was me. In one scene she rejects a marriage proposal from her best guy friend and is substituted by her younger sister for a trip to Europe with her rich old aunt (something she's dreamed of her entire life), both in the span of one day. Hurt, confused, frustrated, she paces the floor and breaks out in an angry rant as her mother sits and listens.

"Well, of course Aunt March prefers Amy over me. Why shouldn't she? I'm ugly and awkward and I always say the wrong things. I fly around throwing away perfectly good marriage proposals. I love our home, but I'm just so fitful and I can't stand being here! I'm sorry, I'm sorry Marmee. There's just something really wrong with me. I want to change, but I---I can't. And I just know I'll never fit in anywhere."

Gah...!  That's me, folks.  Unsatisfied and wanting more---wanting to be more---but not knowing how to get it, or be it, or do it.

Oh, I am such a lost and directionless little woman. But then Marmee's (God's?) reply to Jo echoes in my over-wrought head:

"Oh, Jo. Jo, you have so many extraordinary gifts; how can you expect to lead an ordinary life? You're ready to go out and find a good use for your talent. Though I don't know what I shall do without my Jo---go, and embrace your liberty. And see what wonderful things come of it."

Grrr.

Alright, I've had it. I'm fed up with not knowing what to do with the rest of my life. Actually, I'd be happy if I knew what to do with the rest of this year!

Potential---for who knows what?---is such a stinkin' bother.

Package

I saw the cutest little girl while working today. Big brown eyes, playful dimples, blonde hair crazy-everywhere on her head. Two-and-a-half-years-old, the youngest of three older brothers, and already being feisty and bossy and telling 'em what to do. She wandered around while her parents were talking to me and examined rocks in the dirt, picked grass growing in tufts from under the sidewalk and threw it at one of her brothers, then came back and pulled on the pant leg of another older brother until he reached down and picked her up.  The definition of independent; yet when I caught those brown eyes of her's looking at me and smiled back, she blushed and hid her face behind her brother's neck.

Gosh... spunky and shy, all in the package of one little girl. God is wonderfully creative, isn't He?

Stuck in a ticket shack at Crater Lake twelve hours a day, four days a week, I have started to feel slightly evaporated of all creative juices. Thankfully, Ellie, Laurie and I got home from work a little early one day this week (due to thunderstorms), and so I decided to take advantage of how photogenic stuff around the Brain's home is. "Aaaaah...", it felt good to walk around and snap some shots of things.

Just a Kid Playing In a Sandbox

A child's life are the days as they go by: sunshine, rain, playing outside in the sandbox, playing inside and making pillow forts, drinking chocolate milk, eating mac-n-cheese, dreaming of puppies and kittens and going to grandma's house. So simple... I miss the wonderful simplicity of childhood.

But then I wonder: if life is what we make of it, how often do we limit our lives---and therefore ourselves---by living small? We get comfortable doing what we've always done; living how we've always lived. The habits we develop (whether good or bad) start to erect walls and, eventually, create a box around us. We live in that box and are completely satisfied with the life we lead within it. But even if there's nothing wrong inside our box, what if the box itself is bad? There's gotta be more to life outside the box. There has to be! And what incredible things can God do with us when we allow Him to take us outside of our box?

"Sigh..."

It's time to grow up.