![K. [and me] exploring being see... terms. Salado, TX. July, 2020.](https://cloud.visura.co/15554.951659.story_x_large.jpg)
Private Story
CNN Motherhood Submission
Summary
I began to hone my perspective as an artist/intuitive photographer as young mother, camera in hand, on the floor with two children under two. It was a way to slow down and process, frame by frame. I got to know them, the camera and myself all at the same time. My most profound images are still the ones I receive not OF myself as a mother, but AS a mother of my own children. I'm rarely pictured, which I feel is fitting given that so much of a mother's work goes unseen, creatively and fiercely, holding the boundaries of a moment so that their children might safely explore and discover.
- Tell us more about the photo(s). What stands out to you now, looking back? Is there any additional context you’d like to share with our audience? ANSWER: The shadows are so dense. I love a moody black and white image, always, but there was something even thicker, heavier about these moments. There's a stoic, pensive beauty about them. All were shot in 2020; two a week before COVID hit full force and the rest throughout the year where we were closer to home and each other than we'd ever been before, even with me being a stay at home mother when the kids were both small. When I couldn't process everything that was happening fast enough, when it felt like I couldn't find beauty or hope, as I had in the past, the camera would come out and I'd document our life in front of us. Without fail, beauty would surface in the form it needed to from the real of it and something within me would settle so that I could be the mother that was needed to see my children, and myself, through that particularly odd time in our history.
- Can you describe what it has been like being a mother? What are the challenges and triumphs, and what would you like readers to know about your experience? ANSWER: Being a mother has been and still is to a great extent, a surreal, sacred blur. The challenges and triumphs of are so nuanced and layered. [isn't everything?!] But I'd have to say that allowing for the mother I am vs. forcing myself to assume the shape of the mother I am "supposed to" or "expected to" be sums up both one of the greatest triumphs and greatest challenges that I've faced. I'm a proud, happy single mother. I don't typically line up with convention, expectations or predetermined roles. I've done the "supposed to" version of motherhood and I've done the "this is the mother I am" version. The later wins out. Every time. Mothers come in all forms and should be celebrated and supported as such.
- What does motherhood mean to you? ANSWER: Motherhood means seeing through it all, underneath, straight to the heart of it, then acting/responding on the surface in the best way possible in that moment. It means intentional presence. It means naps whenever possible and a whole lot of quality time in my therapist's office. It means making mistakes openly in front of my children and then setting it right. It means holding an awareness that guiding tiny souls requires you lean hard into the work of wonder and avoid the ease of assumptions. It means forever being frustrated by that damn sock that keeps losing its mate while simultaneously contemplating how to balance immersing yourself in the care and cultivation of the life you've been entrusted with without losing yourself in the process. Most of all, it means that if I want my children to know, trust and be themselves, I must do the work to do and be the same.
152
