To take this picture we laid down in a vineyard, in the rain, in a sort of pilates boat pose so we wouldn’t mess up our hair and then tried to look relaxed.
In the moment I was anxious, angsty, annoyed, and doubtful—only later when we saw this magical shot was I elated.
Our photographer Megan Allen is a genius and took this shot so we can put it on our wall and so people can rightly gush over its beauty but I think she also took it to remind us that we will not always feel magical when we are making magic.
We wake up to write and we are grumpy.
We go to a meeting for something we thought we cared about and suddenly we care zero percent and are annoyed with everybody we once loved.
We head to our supposed HAPPY place — time with our children, a studio, a beach — but we get there and we feel quietly depressed and lost.
All of a sudden your bliss, the one magic you thought you could count on is eclipsed by a dark stirring within. you second-guess everything, you feel like nothing matters and so you think:
If I really loved or was meant for _______ (insert activity / person / pathway formally known as YOUR BLISS) then I wouldn’t feel so ________ (insert painfully uncomfortable FEELING).
Joseph Campbell says follow your bliss, which is right, like…OVERALL.
But your bliss—or, as the Japanese would say, your Ikigai —your reason for being—doesn’t always look like what it sounds.
Sometimes your bliss role-plays as extreme dissatisfaction.
Sometimes your magic shows up as a storm of comparison and jealousy.
Sometimes your ikigai means you eat a big bowl of doubt for breakfast.
So here’s to you, playing the long game, letting the wide river of your courage sing louder than an afternoon rainstorm of feelings. To getting up and doing it anyway, feeling the opposite of magical some days so your future self can look back and say: “thank you, brave one.”
The theme of the summer is magic, but sometimes magic does not always look like magic and I think it’s good to be honest about this.
I believe in you (even when you aren’t feeling it).
LOVE, LK
Photo by Megan Allen of Studio 22 Photography
