Origins

Origins. The place where it all begins.
The reason we are who we are.
Look the way we do.
See life the way we see it.
Our traditions vary from others.
We do not see our lives as unordinary, but the way others live theres is unordinary.
We know who we are from the people who came before us.
And they know who they are from the people before them.
And so forth.
We are who we are from who we originated from.

Joy Castro

I had the pleasure of being able to listen to Joy Castro read her work last night thanks to the Brazos Valley Reads. Going into it I had no idea what to expect, but once I was leaving I found myself on Amazon buying two of her books. The way this woman writes keeps you not only completely captivated the entire time, but also give you chills just thinking about every word she uses to depict what is happening in her stories. In he book "Island of Bones", all of her stories in that book are all based off of true events that have happened in her life. She speaks of life, death, gods, love, and so much more. She makes you reflect on your life and really feel in your heart what she was feeling when writing this. All of her stories are no more than a few pages long per chapter. Just long enough to keep you zoned in on what is happening the entire time, but short enough to where readers won't lose interest. If you want to be swept off your feet and experience a wide range of emotion along with being consumed by beautiful writings then this is the author for you. She is an incredible author.

Patterns

Patterns exist in art, society, friendships, and even food. Our whole lives we have been run by patterns. From the way we drive to school to the way we make mac and cheese, so on and so fourth. Patterns are the basis of our lives and when we break pattern we break out into rebels ( or what we would imagine ourselves as rebellious in our own way). I personally enjoy having a pattern and so does my mom. Every year for Christmas we would attempt to make beautiful Christmas cookies from store bought cookie dough and every year they come out as little holiday blobs with lots of icing so you can make them out of what the desired shape would have been. This past Christmas I got my mom and I passes to a cookie baking class so we could break our pattern. 

As you could see the class was pretty successful despite a few minor set backs like I forgot to check which class I signed up for and it ended up being a Spanish speaking class instead of English. That made for a difficult learning curve, but lots of laughter and funny moments that we will get to have for the rest of our lives. Will we break the pattern again next year? Who knows! As great as patterns are sometimes its a lot of fun to break them and then continue them again. 

Everything Is a Story, Especially Photos

Stories are the foundations of our lives. There is a story in every picture, whether its obvious or not is besides that point. A picture can tell a thousand words and contain amazing stories all at the same time. It could be something as simple as a picture of a tree or an envelope, but little does the world know you grew up reading in that tree or that envelope is what your college acceptance letter came in. Whatever it may be, everything in life tells a story especially through a photo because it is frozen in time. I love to take pictures and document what is going on in my life. I also, love being able to look at other peoples photos and imagine what was happening when they took that photo. Are they one of those peoples that go on crazy adventures all the time or are they the people that are actually sitting at home board doing nothing wanting some love, or are they even the people that barely ever share their photos, but when they do it gives you a little more insight of what kind of things happen to them. Stories are important, they are what keep our history remembered. A lot of people find documenting stories super annoying, but I find it to be a great way to reflect on how you got to  the particular spot in life that you are in. I would rather be annoying and have too many photos and stories that go with them than not have any documentation at all. Letting a good memory  or story fall into the abyss of forgotten memories is a crime in my book.

In this picture, a story that has since changed my life happened and from the photo you would have no idea. Can you guess what happened at this very moment when this photo was taken?
I was at a party with friends my Junior year of college and having a horrible night that I didn't think could get worse, until I was trapped in a bathroom stall and tried to punch my way out of it. In doing so, stupid little me managed to punch through the stall and destroy my hand in the process. This photo was taken exactly five minutes before I broke my hand in three places and just for the hell of it I attached the photo of the aftermath to show too. Though this photo takes me back to a painful and idiotic memory in my life that literally makes my hand hurt when thinking about it. It was the night that I met my boyfriend (now going on a year) and also learned that telling your parents you fell in church goes over much better than telling them the actual story.  Forever these pictures will mark the night that I met the most incredible person in my life and will forever mark the day that alcohol somehow gave me the strength of the hulk. So if there is anything I can encourage you to take from this post, it is that you should never underestimate the power of a photos ability to tell a story. Don't be afraid of reliving your stories, remember that good or bad they help create any amazing foundation of life in general.
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Alter My Course

Life is like a rock wall that over time changes over time, but all paths will lead you to the top, no matter how much they change. I learned how to rock climb and actual climbing wall this semester and it was the coolest thing I have ever done. This experience really made me think about how I got to this point in my life and how I would have never been here if I would not of had a life altering situation in high school. I was never supposed to go to A&M. As a kid I played tennis and continued all the way up to my senior year of high school. I had college scholarship opportunities to play all over the USA and it wouldn't cost my parents a dime. Then in an instant I had my whole lives path to play tennis in college just taken away from me in an instant. Right after we came in second in the State finals for tennis I was in a horrible car accident that completely changed my entire course of life. Suddenly I had no idea what my future held, where I was going to go to college, or what I was going to do with my life. It is weird that one little second could change your entire life, but I have never been more thankful looking back at my life that it happened the way it did. Yes, I was devastated and destroyed my shoulder, but I would have never gone to A&M or met the people that I have. I never thought that my life would end up like this, but I am so blessed it did. Sometimes changing the course in your life is the best thing that can happen for you in the long run.  Change is not the enemy. You are the enemy for fighting the life altering change instead of embracing it.

Look Closer

Graffiti park. Over this past spring break, on my way to float the Frio river, I managed to convince my friends to make a quick pit stop through Austin so that I could go to graffiti park. A place of pure mischief, beauty, and chaos. So much random art that comes together to make a huge art piece but dive in closer and see so much more. My Catholic mother has always hated graffiti! She can't get pasted the so called tackiness of it. In her mind a wall that has writing or drawing on it is out of place and she doesn't want anything to do with it, but how could you see something like this any not want to look closer at it. Graffiti is a whole wall or imagination, hopes, dreams, emotions thats are being expressed right before your very eyes. It is someone leaving their mark weather its as simple as someone signing their name or writing a quote. Maybe its someone painting a giant mural on a wall. Whatever it is, it is amazing. So instead of hating on the graffiti art around you or maybe just glancing at it as you walk by. Look closer. You never know what beauty you might see or something might spark your interest.

Water is Alive

Everything is alive, but more so water is alive. Water has emotion. It can feel things. If its mad it can drown you in its great abyss, when its excited it will sway back and forth making ripples on the surface. or when its happy it can be as smooth as butter. Its also a shelter to many live things as well so it comes full circle in its own way. Growing up in the middle of San Antonio, the only water I was exposed to was a pool and the occasional river float. The friend group that I somehow found myself being captured into all had one thing in common, they were people of the water. Yes, that sounds like a really dramatic sentence, but seriously, if reincarnation is a thing they all would come back as fish for sure or some type of aquatic animal. I never understood why these people were so obsessed with water and when ever I would ask they would just say "you have to feel it to know it!"

Honestly, I kind of thought they were crazy when they all kept telling me that. Until they physically put me in their shoes and took me out on a lake for the first time. Being on a lake with the wind in my hair and the water at my finger tips was incredible. Jumping into the water for the first time, it swallowed me whole and then opened its mouth to give me the privilege of coming up for air. Once I got in, I never wanted to get out. There is this feeling that you get when you feel the emotions of life around you in the water that is so hard to explain. You won't truly understand it though until you experience it for yourself.

The Ground Beneath My Feet

At first when my teacher said that the assignment was to do with finding something on the ground beneath my feet it got me thinking. Not about dirt, gravel, pavement, but the foundation that keeps me going everyday. Sounds super cliche right? When people come into our lives they end up becoming one of three types of people. The first type of person they can become is an acquaintance, someone who is nice and you get along with, but ultimately is just a floater that comes in and out of your life without a huge impact. Then you have the second type of person which is an enemy. This person either started off in good standing and gradually got to this type or immediately from the beginning felt some sort of hatred towards you. Either way those type of people really suck when it comes to dealing with them in life. The last type of person are the people that life would not function without. This last type of people are for the special friends and family that keep you going while also bringing you joy. The one thing all three of these people have in common is that they all play a small or large roll in building a foundation to stand on. Each part makes a difference in shaping a person into who they are. These are the very basis that creates the ground beneath our feet.

For me, the main structure for the foundation beneath my feet is a guy named Steve. Full disclosure I met Steve after I punched through a wall and broke my hand in three places. That complete story is for another time, but back to my point. A moment of weakness and vulnerability started a year long relationship that has not gone a day with out laughter and smiles. Without Steve my world would be unstable and unbalanced. In these photos taken over this past weekend it shows not only joy, but the joy in ridiculous moments that happened this weekend along with a lot of struggle for me personally. Being a person who lives with horrible PTSD, finding someone that is willing to stick around and be there for you are your worst is very hard to come by. It requires a lot of patience, late night phone calls, and someone that will sit with you when you feel like the terrors of the past are giving you a panic attack. Thankfully Steve does all that for me and more. He is so positive and loving. When I have given up on the world he pushes me to give it another chance. The people that keep you moving in life are the people that continue to stand firm underneath you to help you walk and function. Everyone needs to find that person that adds a big chunk of themselves to your foundation and you can do the same for them. This is a person that wants you to be yourself no matter what and is disappointed when you try to fit any other mold. Not everyone can find themselves a Steve, but I hope they can find something pretty close to this incredible human.