Oh my.

This story could begin at 11 years old, when a dusty camera found its way to me through the will of someone I barely knew. I think back on that and can only reason that serendipity was looking out for me.

In the beginning, I photographed all my unfathomable adolescent years out of pure boredom, and then, in increasing sentiments as a desperate attempt to bend Time to stillness. Those years I always felt like Time was trying to run away from me. And so, camera became my holy companion in some pursuit to just remain.

A memory I am often reminded of, is one of a couple years ago- I was sitting next to someone I love in Louisiana, my birth home, and they asked me, “What would Heaven be if you got to choose it?” I surprised us both with my answer, because I only knew I felt this way as I said it aloud, but very sincerely after moments of pondering, I replied, “Just earth really, I love this place.”

I lived the first 22 years of my life in Louisiana, whose name I say with an audible trace of adoration. I have written- and will continue, still- to write love letters to the entity that is Louisiana. She raised me as any great southern mother does- With her best, with kisses, with heat, water, and mud.

By 2020, I was 22 years old fresh out of university and completely fed up with all the ways I was losing at life. Given the many circumstances of that year I know we were all prone to our own shares of losing. I figured if I wanted to quit all my losing I better go figure something else out, and by the guidance of my often-trembling heart, I landed in the North Fork Valley of Colorado. It is these mountains- fullfaced of grace and grit- who I called home for 4 years. Colorado raised me through ladyhood, as any wild midwestern mother would- through dust and hardy weeds like Dandelion. Through seasons, who are each my favorite visitors. Through the way the moon’s phasing and glowing is my own mirror and the sun’s evergreen greeting in each new day is the same devotion and fuel that lights fire to some invisible path I stroll. I remember my first month in Colorado, I was telling a new friend that my body was still adjusting to how dry it is and all she said was, “Ah yes, you’ll want to stay then. And if you give back to this valley as much as it gives to you, you’ll discover your own juiciness.” And that, indeed, I did discover.

Now it is the beginning of 2025 and I am writing this in India. I am 26 now and I hold no keys to anything, anywhere. I haven’t for a while now. People often ask, “And what are you searching for out in this big wide world?” or further, “Well you must be running from something- what is it?” These questions used to put me in a spin with myself, “Yeah Sky what are you looking for? Will you recognize it and finally stay put when you find it? What are you running from? There must be something.” But the other day my friend who is living in a similar way asked instead, “What do you love about your life right now?” And easily I answered back, “Oh, I have a readiness and insatiable delight for this world and there is nothing to deny that anymore.”

I mention all these tender stories, because as I sit here and trail around the spiral of my spirit asking it for the “why” behind all of my making, there is a wellspring of memories like these at its core. The memory of my whole life just smiles back at me with an obviousness, as if to say, “You must, you must, you must. Because, you love- you looooove… you love.” And what better way to celebrate what you love than to make it your muse? To find beauty’s lair and share it with the rest of us, who are longing to know we aren’t alone in all this exquisite mundanity. To not only be a witness to Time’s gifts of change, growth, age, but to reflect Time’s own beauty back to her, as a way to celebrate her.

To this day, cameras remain my marrow, but my relationship with them has drastically changed since I was 11 years old. Where I used to see them as tools to suspend time, bitter that she was too fast for me, I now understand these sacred instruments as I understand myself-

A devotee to Time’s reverie and our passage through her. Knowing now, that she is often strolling behind us, freely inviting us to slow down, treasure the wonderment of her collaboration with life, and take the walk side by side.

And so on this earth, who by some miracle became a symbol of heaven to me, and in the ephemera that is our existence, I make because I must! Because I love! For beauty’s sake and in thanks to Time, the shepherdess of my spirit. For you & for me. For life herself.

In exceeding Love,

Sky