January 4, 2017

Endings and Beginnings

Hello 2017.

Could it get any more cliché to welcome you as a new beginning?

Well, for once, this cliché isn’t some resolution-filled false promise I’d break in two weeks. That’s right. With 2017, this shit gets real.

Two weeks ago my life in the cog of the corporate employment wheel ended. What’s next is a big TBD, a process I plan to openly share here on this blog and hopefully elsewhere.

I’d like to take this moment to thank my life of the past 20+ years. Some of it was particularly amazing: 10 years at Apple during the Steve Jobs reign, 16+ years a father to a blossoming daughter, learning a beloved craft in analog photography, gaining some new life-long friends, watching the San Jose Sharks finally make the Stanley Cup. And, most importantly, building a career that eventually enabled me to leave it. That’s some ironic gratitidue. Thanks corporate employment, from the bottom of my heart, for enabling me to leave you. I’m not sure I would’ve had the courage otherwise.

Now, some of those years, as Life often dictates, weren’t particularly swell. A divorce, some years just-showing up at work, remote elderly care obligations and the loss of my nuclear family. Plus a few less than ideal coping mechnisms, most notably, a developed acumen for appreciating fine wine and spirits. I ignored the fact that, after two drinks, you lose the ability to appreciate. Some hobbies may be better left unexplored.

But here I am, writing this post in a little rented apartment just outside Zion National Park in the town of Springdale, Utah. I’m in the company of my greatest muse. The weather has been cold and cloudy, filled with flat light, less than ideal for good photography. Somehow, that’s appropriate. This is self-inventory time. Time to review what’s worked, what hasn’t and what, going forward, fits the mantra in a never-ending quest to become more of who I am and aspire to be.

This is the path less taken, a new beginning that, on many levels, terrifies me. Which means, it’s exactly where I’m supposed to be.

Inspirations

Too often, attempting to represent the sacred in nature is maligned as being naive or simplistic, and is said to be unchallenging and visually unsophisticated. This need not be so.

Christopher Burkett

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