hello 2016
time just keeps rolling by, and i've felt in the past few weeks i've just been hanging on for the ride. suddenly here we are in a new year.on the last day of 2015, we woke up and looked around our messy house that we'd stepped in and out of over the past few weeks between holiday parties, christmas grocery shopping, the last photography assignments of the year, picking up gifts and family gatherings... in between it all it seemed we'd never ended up staying long enough to do much more than fall into our beds at night... and then, on this last day of the year, we realized oh right, we're meeting a friend for brunch, then hosting our friends from out of town for the night, and also had nothing in our fridge. our bags from the day before, when we'd arrived home from a few days away with my family near quebec city, still lay overflowing with laundry on our bedroom floor. we'd driven home through a bit of a snowstorm, in a borrowed car, rear-wheel drive, and no snow tires.what a great, whirlwind few weeks it'd been. but still.. we were a bit exhausted.after the rush of the season (and the year), i'm relishing these few quieter days to begin the new year, to pause and reflect a bit. i know it's cliche but i do really like to spend some time thinking about what the previous year has brought me. my head feels cloudy when i ask 'what was 2015 like, as a whole?' because it was filled with such highs & such lows that i cannot nicely sum up. maybe it would be best to remember it in shot-sized morsels, throwing back the memories and the things they taught us in a single gulp, feeling the burn of nostalgia and pain but also the warmth spreading from our insides out.the good & the bad, the things i want to remember about this year:early in the year... i read the war of art, which really inspired me, dave and i went away for a few days to an air bnb cabin north of the city, and i participated in an online photography course lead by two mentors who mean a lot to me (and the course lifted me up in great ways). it was a good way to start out the year. we cleaned out our office closet, where i found a time capsule i'd totally forgotten to open on new year's eve. i had made it with friends on new year's eve, 1999.... it was just as good as i hoped it would be. (and of course a little bit cringe-y too). we took a couple of road trips into the usa for work. dear friends went through tough things. we waited for a cold winter to end & were thankful for the days of sunshine.spring and early summer... dave and i both participated in the 100 day project in april, creating something new every day for 100 days straight. it was one of the best practices i've ever done. we took a big trip, visiting copenhagen, the faroe islands, and iceland. never have i felt more isolated & challenged & inspired while traveling. i never want to forget that. i look back on it now & think i must have been a different person to have done some of the hikes we did in the faroe islands, and i smile thinking of our time living in a campervan for seven days in iceland.we arrived back home to a wicked case of post-travel blues, but also a full schedule right into wedding season. we photographed an event solely with instant cameras, which was a highlight of the year work-wise for me, because it was something i'd never done before and the challenge felt really good. i started writing, every day, out on our back deck, where we planted a small garden.summer & fall... i took dave away for his birthday to a lodge where we'd photographed a wedding a few years ago. we canoed, ate good food and went on a few hikes where we were totally eaten alive by mosquitoes. i don't want to forget sitting on the porch in the mornings, unwrapping the glorious food they delivered straight to the door in a picnic basket. in between weddings, i also managed to go on two canoe trips -- one with dave's mum and four of her friends, and one with dave to celebrate our anniversary. both were filled with many portages, less mosquitoes, and watching the millions of stars come out at night. september was our busiest month work-wise this year, but it was filled with so many days that we loved. there was an election, and thanksgiving.november... the hardest month of the year (probably of our life). our cat became quite ill & we had to say goodbye. there's nothing i can say or write that can convey what it was like to lose her, nor what the following days and weeks felt like. it was hard and there was no getting around it, only through it, painfully. it is still really hard. part of looking back on the year is looking back on the moments & little nooks of life that contained our little black & white ball of fur.end of the year... as we started to re-emerge from the haze of grief, the memories from the past month come to me in snapshots. a random dive bar in michigan. pulling christmas crackers. reading two amazing books (big magic by elizabeth gilbert & not forgetting the whale by john ironmonger). a house filled with our nieces & nephews on christmas day. dave showing me the star wars movies (i'd never seen them). snowshoeing through the forest in quebec as it snowed. cheers-ing the new year with our friends in our (semi-clean) home.
it's a lot but not even all of it. i don't think i'm really a 'resolutions' kind of person, but i am looking forward to this new year and us continuing to find our place and going slow enough that i can take things in. things never stop changing and i think i used to look at that as a negative and something to be pre-stressed out about -- now, i'm trying not to worry about it too much and just take things a day at a time as they come. i find that it's then that i can really experience things (good or bad) and be open enough to let these experiences shift me & influence me.a day at a time.cheers to 2016 & whatever it may bring you. x