I intended to write about this:

About covenants and rainbows and promises kept and promises broken.   How I’m good at keeping the big promises (no worries, Doug) but it’s the little ones I make to myself that I break again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again .

About how I know I’m stubborn, how I love being stubborn.  Yet, I am just now realizing (in this 2176th week of my life) how stubborn I can be with myself.  And NOT IN A GOOD WAY.

Stubbornness which pushes me away from writingmeditatingexercisingphotographingfaithfuturehope.

Which leads me to worrying I am not worthy or ready for this journey after all.  And it should all come out.  Come undone.

Because, seriously, the world IS coming undone around us and some days there is nothing I can do to pretend I can make it right.

Last night I dreamt I stumbled across a whole pile of beehives buzzing with angry bees and one stung me in the back of my neck.

So here I am in the forest with bluebeard and predators and snuffling and sniffling and bees who are mad at me.

And the path is wobbly and crooked.

Artist date at Seattle Art Museum yesterday. So good. Art. aRt. ART. I love it. I may blog about this for days. Soul filling.

Let’s start on the third floor, shall we? Imogen Cunningham. (Can I just tell you I love people named Imogen? If I had another daughter that would be a serious name contender. Not gonna happen. But still.)  A native Northwesterner. A woman photographer when that was uncommon. I imagine her to be strong, funny, determined.  Several of the prints really moved me.  Leni in Chartres and Jump Rope, New York made me so grateful for photography and all the amazing photographers I know. (See blogroll.) You, We, are doing good work. Keep going.

For your consideration, Age and Its Symbols and Morris Graves and Imogen in his Garden.

Cunningham’s portrait of Frida Kahlo, Painter 3, reminds me of portraits of Georgia O’Keeffe. Women in full possession of their beauty. The beauty of confidence, of life, of age, of wisdom.

Edward Weston and Marguerite Mather (The Lovers) is gorgeous in person. Truly. And The Unmade Bed is perhaps the most beautiful depiction of fabric I have ever seen. Oh those sheets.

Here she is being a grandmother & artist, Imogen Cunningham and Grandchildren at Fun House, San Francisco, and here are some of her Granddaughter’s recollections.

After watching this preview I can’t wait to get a copy of Meg Partridge’s film and learn more. You, yes you there. Take a minute right now and watch the preview. I think you will see why I love Imogen Cunningham.

One more thing? Gelatin Silver Prints. Sigh. I am like one of the most honest, rule abiding people you will ever meet. But it took a LOT of self restraint not to just take those prints right off the wall and walk out the door with them. Shh….don’t tell SAM.

In the garden we practice letting thoughts, ideas, preferences, desires, even loves, both live and die.  We plant, we pull, we bury.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D.