Docile Stream

Docile Stream Seeker of warm authenticity and kisses of light. Music enthusiast. Wannabe genealogist. Open book.

I wrote this some days back, in the throngs of PMS. I don’t love it. But I’m sharing it because I do love that I was wri...
12/13/2023

I wrote this some days back, in the throngs of PMS. I don’t love it. But I’m sharing it because I do love that I was writing. Sadly, it generally takes me being in a dramatic emotional space to do so… Anyway, just write. Just write. Be dramatic. Let it be messy. Just write.

I can’t dance to my own broken record.
The words are too staccato to sing along.
I weave through the repetition like a fun-house-mirror maze,
trying to catch my own gaze in the dizzying reflections
and ease into a softer rhythm.
A groove.
A pace.
A consistent drumbeat to invite others to sway their hips and tap their feet.
Instead stunted by my own squelching, scritch-a-scritch turntable cacophony.
A maneki-neko — waving, waving,
waving,
so it appears I am at a rave but
I’m truly standing still,
hoping a ringing bell will bring some company
and maybe a little jazz
or Ill Communication minus the self-Sabotage.
I wickity-wickity whack myself in the face
trying to force a round hole with a square peg.
On this dizzying merry-go-round of my own design.
Always left dancing solo to my own skip-skip-skipping noise.

No matter what you say, no matter what you do, so long as you are living authentically someone will inevitably have some...
07/03/2023

No matter what you say, no matter what you do, so long as you are living authentically someone will inevitably have something to say about it.

This has been a hard lesson for me as a people pleaser. To continue needing to be everything for everyone, you lose yourself — you become flat, average, mediocre, muddled.

Sure, maybe you are on OK terms with a larger swath of people, but you have diluted your essence in the process.

I am at the point in my life where I want to get to know other people at a soul level without having as much of a revolving cast of characters.

I -will- phrase things in ways someone doesn’t like or reads into with alternate intent. I -will- be weird and awkward — too quiet, too loud, hypocritical, uncouth. I -will- be hard to understand, sometimes withdrawn, sometimes a bit too curious.

I will also be a support system, a solid ear, a (small) kick in the rear, and an occasional snarky tease.

I am surely still internalizing criticism to even feel the need to say this. But I know my heart and that’s always all that matters.

I’m seeking more. Not everyone will meet my energy. I won’t meet everyone else’s energy. And that, truly, is beautiful, because our differences are what make the world so great and diverse. Trying to appease everyone in all ways is the antithesis of diversity.

Why are we, as women, so trained to make excuses? Why is the energy one of oversharing and over-explaining?I see this ti...
06/15/2023

Why are we, as women, so trained to make excuses? Why is the energy one of oversharing and over-explaining?

I see this time and again as a leader of a group made up of mostly mothers. But I don’t see men doing this, only women.

We pad everything to soften any potential forthcoming blow. We spill forth a lot of extra verbiage to create a greater space between our needs and feelings and the person receiving them. We inch in with “I’m sorry, but…”

This is a uniquely female trait. But, as a fellow female, I’m asking us to stop. Pause before communicating. Share what’s important and true and ditch the rest (or save it for your diaries and bitchfests with friends).

Become so deeply at peace with “no” being a complete sentence.

“No, I can’t make it.” “No, I’m not interested.” “No, that doesn’t work for me.” “No thank you.” The end.

I love connecting people.It’s a drive and skill that I’ve come by only truly since becoming a mother, which I find humor...
06/11/2023

I love connecting people.

It’s a drive and skill that I’ve come by only truly since becoming a mother, which I find humorous considering how shy and awkward I was virtually entirely up until that time, and even during the first few years of Aden’s life.

It has since become a passion.

When I shot photography professionally (you don’t know how hard it was to remove the quotations surrounding that word — imposter syndrome in full effect), I wrote about how connection was the best word I had found to describe my work.

But now I can see that connection is something I encompass on a greater scale.

I’m not saying my life is devoted to connecting others. I’m not a matchmaker nor anywhere near as involved in my community as I could be. But if I see an opportunity to bring people together, or to alert people about an opportunity, I definitely will go out of my way to share that awareness or try to bring people together.

Little hermit-y Claire is still in there. I get burned out easily in social settings and am still socially awkward. And yet — I fully own this role that I take on and acknowledge that it isn’t something most people like to nor are drawn to do.

So I will embrace and embody my connecting nature. Celebrating our gifts and traits can feel like ego stoking, but our variations in abilities and passions is how we find spaces for teamwork and being good community leaders and supporters. Proudly stoke that flame!

I almost deleted this photo.I took more than 500 photos across two days at the beach, and when I looked at this photo, a...
06/10/2023

I almost deleted this photo.

I took more than 500 photos across two days at the beach, and when I looked at this photo, as I rushed to cut down that number before sharing a batch of the images with my family, it felt awkward.

But — I accidentally rotated it. It was an unintentional move on my part. So I rotated it again so that it was upside down.

And then I loved it.

I will tell you, all of the best things in my life have come from happy accidents. I wouldn’t say I have never worked for anything, because I know that isn’t true. But so much has shown itself to me through overshooting, goofing around, being in the right place at the right time, etc.

Even this trip was a last-minute choice — to tag along with my sister and her family.

When I am just living my life and not stressing over the details, that’s when I find the greatest pockets of beauty and joy.

Time traveling is strange. You are at once then and now. The sensations of the past flood your body but you have switche...
03/27/2023

Time traveling is strange. You are at once then and now. The sensations of the past flood your body but you have switched prescriptions in your glasses and can see things differently.

One thing I recognize is how incapable I was, and sometimes still am, of hearing anyone else in a grounded way. In these particular historical events, it was expressed to me that I felt I was logical but I was, by default, emotional. I did not want to hear that. My ego very strongly said, “Bitch, please…”

But the deep truth of me is that I have lived an ungrounded existence. Of course I was emotional. I wasn’t taught how to process and work through stress. Everything was about suppression and appeasement.

And I do know that my airy nature is often what draws people to me. I can be a fresh breath of air. A kite. A warm hug. A tease of a laugh on the wind.

But the other side of the coin is that I can be flighty. A tantruming maelstrom. A slammed door. A crumpled red flag.

And here I am, pulling up some music for whatever random reason, and a TARDIS just appears. It’s bigger on the inside, just like the expanse of our minds and hearts — and all those darn memories, like fractals, that come rushing back to paint a slightly different picture every time you return to them.

There was a while where I carried this self-criticism that I didn’t share the prettiest, most interesting photos here, t...
03/23/2023

There was a while where I carried this self-criticism that I didn’t share the prettiest, most interesting photos here, that my feed wasn’t consistent, that I wasn’t delivering inspiring vocabulary every single day…

But the reality is that I am not curated. I am not a celebratory bunch of balloons 24/7. I am not a robot with AI-generated thoughts and feelings and interpretations of the world.

My art hides at times and shines in others. My experiences shape the stories I tell here, and a lot of my days are spent at home doing habitual tasks. My life is nowhere near fully displayed in these tiny boxes.

I love being candid and connecting through this space. I also love being surprised when I feel seen and heard amid the clattering din that is social media today.

My friend .photo wrote in a recent post about the idea of photography through the lens of motherhood. My reply was that ...
03/23/2023

My friend .photo wrote in a recent post about the idea of photography through the lens of motherhood. My reply was that motherhood photography is “the photography of fleeting moments.”

We do not get these moments back. Time continues charging on. Our children become self-conscious teenagers, then adults off in their own worlds. Our bodies change as our bellies bulge with life, then our arms grow strong as we cradle (and chariot) our babes, then our backs become hunched with piggyback rides.

None of it stays the same — not even through subsequent pregnancies and childhoods.

Photography helps us hold onto those precious still frames of this whirlwind life.

Take the photos, mommas.

At some point in my parenting journey, I recognized that a major trigger for me was feeling unheard. So I worked to tra...
03/23/2023

At some point in my parenting journey, I recognized that a major trigger for me was feeling unheard. So I worked to train Aden to respond to me when I give him a directive or let him know about something upcoming in the day, etc. Sometimes he says, “Understood” or “OK.” Sometimes he gives a thumb’s up. Sometimes he doesn’t acknowledge receipt of my words and I nag at him until he does. But on the whole, seeing that as a need for me and working on how to communicate that with him has made our relationship better. Hopefully it is also a helpful skill for him with future relationships, because I honestly doubt anyone likes feeling like their words are drifting off into the oblivion or that they are being ignored.

We went to Paul’s grandpa’s funeral service this week. I brought my camera and tripod on the trip down, but on the day o...
03/04/2023

We went to Paul’s grandpa’s funeral service this week. I brought my camera and tripod on the trip down, but on the day of the actual funeral I wasn’t sure if I should bring them.

I paced around, debating aloud to Paul. Eventually, I scrapped the tripod. “We aren’t taking group photos at a cemetery…” Paul replied.

But I brought my camera — with only one lens.

We have some photos from one of my grandmothers’ funerals when I was a pr***en, and I appreciate that those images exist.

So I brought my camera.

When we got there, Paul’s aunt encouraged me to snap away. So I tried to take photos of things I felt were relevant, like people hugging, without stalking people in teary states.

Yet, what I remember most about myself is that with every photo I took, I would look at the back of the camera, seeing the way this model that I have hated since the moment I got it poorly handles contrast, then complain audibly about how terrible the photo was, or I would state how I missed important moments. Event photography has never been my chosen field because there are no do-overs — if you don’t catch -that- moment, it isn’t recorded.

I verbalize a lot of what is in my mind, and it’s largely unnecessary. I don’t know why I do it, and I’ve worked across the years to rein it in and attempt to be more internal.

But that shoulder devil was on full display throughout the service.

There are still so many holes that need patching within me. If only we could wake up one day and feel whole — acknowledging our faults without harping on them or doing everything in our power to ensure others see them.

I haven’t even looked at the photos I took yet. Logically, I know they aren’t a representation of me, however they turned out. But the voice inside clearly disagrees with me — and worse yet, wanted anyone around me in that moment to know it.

My impulses and feelings toward other people can be easily swayed by the responses of people close to me. It leads me to...
12/05/2022

My impulses and feelings toward other people can be easily swayed by the responses of people close to me. It leads me to question myself and my choices and sets my head spinning.

But what I realized today is that it’s actually my nervous system making these reflexive switches as a protection mechanism.

Person X is safe to my nervous system, so their feelings about another person or situation mean something and I should align with them.

It isn’t that this is wrong, but I can see that it is what happens without my being conscious of it.

If I hear of someone being villainized — like we often see in the media — if I feel trusting in the person expressing this opinion then I, too, see the villain before me. Suddenly this face is scary and makes me uncomfortable.

We, inherently, are prone to collectivist energy. We are pack animals. Who are the people in my tribe? Those are the people I trust to help protect me.

Again, it isn’t necessarily wrong. There’s an instinctual root in it. These people may see something my naive little heart doesn’t, or doesn’t want to.

But I’ve allowed the energy of others to yank around my instincts. I defer without thought because my nervous system leads the way.

Sometimes I have to fail on my own. Sometimes I have to check something out further to see what -I- actually feel about it.

Exploration — always a major driver for me.

I can explore now because I do, at my heart, know that I will be OK even if I make a choice that leads to some pain.

In the past, I would sit in avoidance, always running from any hint of discomfort caused to myself or others. But in putting prevention over connection, nothing ever resolved, resentment and distrust only grew.

That same choice that could bring pain might also navigate through a lot of joy. I can’t always take the safe path and I can’t always follow other people’s directions if I want to find the hidden gems that my soul craves.

At the end of the day, I’ve got a satellite phone to the people who love me. I won’t get completely lost in the forest.

(Spring 2010. Pentax P3 with expired Kodak 200.)

Grateful.Grateful for community. Grateful for people who show up. Grateful for spaces for learning and growth. Grateful ...
11/23/2022

Grateful.

Grateful for community. Grateful for people who show up. Grateful for spaces for learning and growth. Grateful for exploration. Grateful for flexibility. Grateful for patience. Grateful for connection.

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