a beginning

Starting college about two weeks ago has led me to think a lot about how the present affects the future and basically the question: WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE? When I tell people I'm "planning on double majoring in English and French with a minor in creative writing," people often ask, "So what do you hope to do with that?" I've always been an advocate of first doing what you love and THEN finding a way for it to pay the bills - I define success by happiness. So in choosing what to concentrate on in my studies for the next four years, I obviously chose three of the subjects about which I am the most passionate - studying language and literature and writing. Unfortunately a huge passion of mine that has fallen through the cracks in this process: photography. My academic load senior year was so overwhelming and therefore stifling of my creativity that I lost the time to think about photography and art, let alone create it. And now after having spent the majority of this summer alone and admiring the consistent flow of work my peers on flickr/the internet in general were creating, I sorely feel this pang of guilt and regret that has come from my negligence toward my photography. I'm starting to genuinely believe and worry about the fact that my talent for photography just may never be how used to be. I long for that state of being so obsessed with and fully immersed in the art like I was before, during, and a few months after my 365 Project. I miss that feeling of constant inspiration so much. I think senior year really held me back artistically and now I’m so fixated on other things for which I've developed just as strong passions (writing, language (french), literature, the environment) that I'm afraid I can’t give my love for photography the attention it deserves and is asking for. I am genuinely worried about this, especially as I begin to realize that the academic path I’m taking - while being one that excites me and interests me - is most likely going to lead me to being a freelance creative person (after grad school and doctoral school), and without having kept certain facets of what i consider my personal creativity honed i’m just going to be very lacking in certain aspects. Compared to my peers (many of which went to art school this fall), I have undoubtedly let myself go artistically and have in turn fallen behind.

So, as a response to this kind of revelation, I have decided to make art more of a priority in my life. I will be keeping an all-inclusive journal (covering all aspects of my life - school, social life, french, extracurriculars, art, my writing, general thoughts) in a large bound sketchbook. This blog will be the digital rendering of this journal.
For my inaugural post it seems appropriate to post photos from this summer. It was a strange summer, to say the least - like I said, I spent most of it alone - but it resulted in lots of self reflection. The summer also ended on a somewhat bad note, which made the transition to college a little bit awkward, but I'll elaborate on that in the next post.

Until then, THIS SUMMER:

sally gave me this necklace for graduation which i really loved! i'm sad it started turning and i had to stop wearing it...8(

philip with the failed rum watermelon at william's ocean isle house for a mid-beach week break

still at ocean isle, me with billy and jake straight CHILLIN.

mom shelling some peas we bought at the greensboro farmers market. the bowl she is using is the same one bessie used for shelling peas.

an instax i took of elizabeth shelling peas - nestled atop our newly shelled peas! (it takes forever.)

liam and phil facing the first obstacle of many during our salem lake bike trip

the point of the ride at which we said screw it and turned around. cut off about 1.5 miles from the trail...bummer!!

william and philip rinsing off their bike ride-muddy legs after our salem lake adventure at the water pump at old salem (there were a ton of yellow jackets swarming the thing - kind of odd!)

these random spots appeared on my shoulder this summer. i kind of liked the way they looked so i took a picture haha

mom and i went blueberry picking! it was my first time and it was really nice. makes me want to grow blueberry bushes one day.

mom knocked her bucket over lul

i made 3 lemon blueberry buckles within one week (one for home, one for sassy & papa, and one to take to figure 8)...all with the blueberries we picked. SO DELICIOUS. click here for the recipe. i sprinkled some turbinado sugar on top to get the sparkly little clusters of crunch on the surface.

i also made rose bakery's blueberry scones. really delicious! they were a tiny bit dry, though. next time i'll just bake them for less time.

around july 4th when sally came home for the weekend! and cut a lot of watermelon..which..tasted good.

mom's birthday! holla.

then we went to ocracoke on july 14th- sydney's 18th birthday! kind of a crappy way to spend your birthday (8 hour "journey"), but i personally think ocracoke was worth it!

I'm completely smitten by Ocracoke each time I go, and I believe my smittenness only intensifies as I grow older. This summer I definitely realized my deep appreciation for and connection with the beach. Being so close and so intimate with the sea - something so vast, so immeasurable, so inconceivable and almost intangible - gives me an intense feeling of a certain profundity I can't really articulate. And as far as beaches go, I think Ocracoke might be getting dangerously close to winning the title of the perfect one (it's no wonder it's won countless awards in the past!). While the town of Ocracoke deserves a full paragraph of detailed description of its unabashed yet charming weatheredness, its myriad of tucked-away corners of cemetery or flower garden waiting to be explored, and its always-animated host of locals who never tire of conversing with the ubiquitous tourists, but I will let the photos speak for themselves in that regard. What I find most special about the island is the lush expanse of national seashore that makes up about 90% of Ocracoke's land mass. My friend Tyler, who lives in Duck (one of the northern-most points of the Outer Banks), described Ocracoke as "definitely the most isolated" island on the Outer Banks. I realize he's talking about the island's condition in the off-season (i.e. the majority of the year), but because of all of Ocracoke's visitors during the summer, that was somewhat hard for me to accept...until I rode north on Uncle Jay's bike. I'm a person who has a revelatory experience on nearly every bike ride she takes, so let me assure you - this particular bike ride was nothing short of life-changing. The ride was only a little over 7 miles round-trip (half of it was against the wind, mind you) and right next to a highway (highway 12 would probably not qualify as an actual highway to many), but I found the experience of traveling north with the sea flanking my bike as it sped up the thin strip of land and the bugs screeching from deep within the dunes completely exhilarating. From that experience I gained (apart from boring self-reflective stuff no one cares about) an even deeper appreciation for the topographical diversity of our state. I had been lusting after the Blue Ridge Mountains all summer, genuinely craving a hike or just a glimpse at a mountain range (especially after listening to Dreamin' of Appalachia while at Ocracoke! (it's still in my top 5 favorite songs)), but my experience traveling solitarily up the length of this tiny tiny island was reason enough for me to fall in love with the farthest east part of North Carolina. Alas, I will forever be rooted in the piedmont - the foot of the mount for all you French scholars - but I cannot complain. This state is really almost perfect. And while we're at it, can I get a HELL YEAH for being treated to all four seasons year after year? Such a fan of fall right now. Maybe it isn't such a bad thing I was forced to stay in NC for college... ;)

oh yeah, i actually did make it to a quasi-mountain before the summer ended! pilot mountain with philip, william, billy, and sydney.

when we got back to town we went to finnegan's for dinner (SO GOOD as usual), then kernel kustard (do i even need to say SO GOOD), and then we felt really fat. SO WE WENT CONING. this activity includes ordering an ice cream cone at a drive-thru and grabbing it by the ice cream part. chaos / hilarity ensues. i have a video somewhere...

these are some photos i took of my room a few days before i left for college. oh, how i miss it so...

So, this marks the first post of (hopefully) many! This particular post is probably a little bit out of chronological order... but I'm really eager to get started, so maybe I'll fix it later! THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS ABOUT WHICH TO BLOG, Y'ALL. Peace.