monday updates on a wednesday (i am horrible)

034- Monday Updates: Client shoots, personal shoots, and trying to balance life

This is the second time I’ve missed a Monday Update since I started last year. This week has been a constant tug-of-war with priorities, with photo shoot planning and hosting Japanese dinners.

I have been swept along the Mexican wave of events, friends, and dance. The city is intoxicating. I am at peace here, but I am finding that it has been difficult to sit with emotions fully.

In the rush, in the river, in the wave, my emotions have been absent. They may very well be hibernating, but it does feel strange. I simply go along with it and hope to end up at a kind shore.

I know that I must swim more than I float. This is perhaps why I have felt disengaged from my own work and why I have been struggling with writing. I do not know if I have the ability to make my own choices in my own life quite yet.

Yesterday, I had my first client shoot this year for the St. Regis Mexico. Working with them was spectacular. I couldn’t have asked for a better client.

It also made me realize how much shame was left over in terms of conducting oneself in public.

I was sitting on the table in the dining hall, trying to find the best angles for setting up. As I stood on the marble countertop, I found my body go into a slight panic each time someone walked into the room. I expected a staff member to come reprimand me, telling me that I needed to get off the table, that how I was conducting myself was inappropriate, or not “Japanese”. No one came to tell me that. No one cared, and we made beautiful photos.

I developed a roll of film here in Mexico City, and all the shadows are purple, and I am not happy. I knew from before that the film results in Mexico leave much to be desired. I think back on what New York or Japan has to offer. In terms of film photography, much, much more.

I am sad that there is a choice I may have to make within my own production and that there is a compromise that needs to be made.

I am visiting one more development place after I finish a roll; it is a lab in Centro. They say they can develop the film in one day, which makes me skeptical, but one can hope.

I am coming to terms with the things I need to do now. I have been giving up several things this year, but I need to give up even more. There will always be more added to the list, but now I have two things I need to say goodbye to. Sugar, and Social Media.

They are two every day things, but they have been affecting my life dramatically, and I feel they have been the primary numbing agents. I have given up several vices over the past few years, but these have proved to be the final bosses in terms of addictions. They may seem mild, childish to some degree, but as someone who didn’t have a phone for 10 years, now suddenly having one, and also resisting it has been difficult. I do not know how to balance the unnatural things in life.

My body and mind have also been seeking solitude. In this swirl of meeting people, I might need to shut myself in for a bit. But how can I resist? I feel that I have only started to see the world and have finally learned how to act within it. How can I stop myself now?

I have been wondering many things and have come to no conclusions. I cannot resist the pull, the pull of people. The little heart of this once homeschooled, very isolated child screams for understanding, for connection. How can I not give it to her?

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Monday Updates is a section of this blog where I’m letting my hair down, figuratively. I am often preoccupied with getting things perfect, rather than simply sharing and enjoying the process while talking about life. Instead of the tradition of hating Mondays, I’m going to try to associate them with creative freedom and allow myself to speak my mind without the worry that a perfectionist usually has. Things here may be a bit disjointed, incomplete, and occasionally nonsensical, but they may also be playful, curious, and whimsical. I will do my best to make it more of the latter.