Knowing Where He Belongs

After lengthy time off to recover from an injury this young dog is on the alert more so than usual.

He has been off duty due to injury for the past seven weeks. He missed the entire lambing season. While he was healing he resided at the yard/in the house with us. He joined the Kelpies and me for daily exercise and we began to joke that he was becoming a good farm dog. My plan was to return him to work at the end of this week and supervise his first couple hours with the flock and the other dogs. Instead he left during a walk one morning (something he had not done on all the previous walks), jumped two fences and returned himself to work.

After a lengthy time off he still knows where he belongs and with whom and he just wants to be there. I wish to have his level of assurance about knowing where he belongs and what he is meant to do.

I’ve been trying to find that confident assurance with my creative pursuits. My studio time this week involved more photography related work than artwork as I scoured through thousands of photos and tried to shape my thoughts around what it looks like to hang out one’s shingle and BE Photographer. There should be something to mark it as official, something to give me the concrete assurance I am looking for and there just isn’t. Like all other aspects of life the thing we look hardest for lies within, not without.

Fittingly enough, I also came across this quote in my journal: “Better to move forward and figure it out than to stand still and believe you know the right answer.” Seth Godin.

I don’t know what Being Photographer looks like yet, but I do know I’ve been standing still for a long time, afraid to take any ownership of the title. Stepping up to own that photographer is entirely possible feels uncertain but yet it holds the right amount of knowing that photography appeals very strongly to me, that it always has.