Dear Intimacy,

What would you have me know today?

Here's the thing. I won't be posting on Instagram anymore. I've been considering leaving Instagram for awhile and revisited this thought after having two experiences. The first experience was 19ish months ago with my mom when she was in the hospital in Comox, BC, isolated in the ICU . My dad and I drove up from Qualicum Beach to Comox to spend the day with her. Once we were gowned up and sitting around her, I was chatting about photography. I can't remember how Instagram came up but it did. My mom cautioned me against posting my photography and personal reflections on a public platform which owns my data as soon as I post. I knew she was right, but me being me, I refused to listen and continued to fight her! The me now, 19 months after my mom died, wished I had stopped fighting her. She is my mom! All the way until the day she died, she was trying to take care of me. And I fought her.

The second experience was a few days ago when I met with a mentor over zoom. He was teaching and helping me to select photographs to include in my long-term photography project, Mothering without a Mother. He reiterated what I had been thinking: People spend 2-3 seconds looking at your photography and then move on. Don't follow what you "should do", make your own path. Most of all, he encouraged me to keep going! Practice photography everyday, write every day. Keep going.

I've reached out to a few artists I want to learn from. Their message is the same: Keep going. Do the work. But actually it's not work! I practice photography everyday and not once do I think of photography as work. Before returning to photography, however, I spent years doing a lot of things I really didn't want to do. Today I find it freeing to get to practice something everyday which I love.

So, after hearing my mom's voice in my head for 19 months I've decided to stop fighting her and listen. Mom!! Where ever you are, look!!! I'm not on Instagram! Instead I’ll be writing my reflections and sharing my work on my blog. And I love you.