Inspiration comes when you least expect it.

Mine came approximately 20 minutes ago in the form of a friend’s status on Facebook.

She was considering authenticity and how not sharing every detail effects it.

I have the same issue when it comes to this blog – and it spills over into other areas of my life too.

The conclusion I came to was that the grey area would have to be.  This is my journey and it is not fair to write about someone elses part in it.

But I loathe editing myself.  I loathe it, and yet, I do it every day.

I know the following truths about myself:

I love with abandon.

I detest lying.

I have an artistic soul.

I am not as strong as people think I am.

There is so much you don’t know.  Pieces of the puzzle that are necessary to make the picture clear are missing.

Omitted.

In the car, within a flood of thoughts and ideas, an image of a carnival came to mind.

I photograph everything.  I love taking pictures.  Snap shots – memories – art for art’s sake..  Whatever speaks to me is photographed.

Back at the carnival, I imagined lights and families – photographs of smiling children holding pink cotton candy.  But that isn’t a fair representation of ‘the carnival’.

I would want gritty photos of the staff setting up the rides – dirt on their jeans, sweat running into their eyes.  Pictures of parents with sad, tired faces – financial worry etched into their brows.  The litter – the splitting seams of the cheap midway prizes.

All of it.

All.

This need drives me.  I stumble upon something I know nothing about, and I have to research to understand it.  A book ends in ambiguity and I’m annoyed.  A movie or documentary touches me and I must see ‘behind the scenes’.

I’m on a constant quest to discover the why.  What makes people tick?  When I ask questions of a friend or a stranger for that matter – I’m genuinely interested in the answers.

I question myself all the time too.  What was my motive?  What is this feeling?  Why am I doing what I’m doing?

Truth.

I need it like air and water, calories and sleep.  I need it like dreams and love and knowledge.

I can respect the truth.  No matter if I like the answer.

I’ve learned to call bullshit on myself.  I am honest with me.

I had a thought this Summer that I wanted to bare it all – literally.  I wanted to do a very tasteful nude photo session – somewhere out in the desert.

I was comfortable enough with my body and the place that my head and heart was in to strip down to nothing.

I was going to use some of the photos in a post about baring it all.  But how can I?  I withold information all the time.  I haven’t earned the right to post modest nudes and speak about exposing every part of me (in writing, not the photos – that wouldn’t make them very postable would it?)

I used a photo in a post about ‘home’ that I edited.  It was a topless photo I took myself.  I wanted to capture the phase I was in of being free and naked – yet not completely there yet.  The outside world was still … well, outside.

This is the original photo.

And it says so much about me.

I am comfortable in my skin, in comfortable environments.

And that’s not very brave.  And it’s not very honest.

But it is my truth.

And if I can tell you that I’m not telling you everything, I think that puts me one step closer to baring it all.

I’ll keep searching.