Loaded up and ready to go, I headed out on Saturday morning to shoot some photographs. As soon as I got downtown, though, I knew it wasn’t the right time. I saw the crowds for the Austin City Limits festival and all the cars and immediately my fingers gripped the steering wheel as my shoulders made their way up to my ears (Anne Lamott refers to this as the Nixon). Nope. Not gonna happen. I was not in a good frame of mind to deal with crowds.

But I know this about myself. Sometimes I can push through it and sometimes I can’t. Knowing the difference is a matter of gauging what I can handle at the moment. This was not one of those moments. So, I relaxed my fingers on the wheel, turned the car around and made a change of plans. I would come back tomorrow and see how things went.

And I’m so glad that I did. The next day I had a blast. I got some great practice with both my digital and one of my new/old film cameras, the Canon ML. Here’s a few from the digital. With the film I’ll have to (lovingly) wait.

That’s what I’ve been asking myself lately. As part of The Alignment, I was asked to write down my purpose in life. So, naturally I put it off until the very last minute.

But when I could no longer avoid it, I finally sat down and followed Steve Pavlina’s post on crafting a personal mission statement in 20 minutes. I was told, if you’re not crying, you haven’t hit on it yet. Oh, that’s so silly I thought. Why would I cry?

15 minutes later…tears, lots of tears. Oh my god, tears. Where are these tears coming from, holy shit??

My purpose in life?

My purpose in life is to feel. To inspire others to feel and not go numb. To remember what it’s like to be a child and childlike, to have dreams, feel carefree and feel safe and inspire others to feel the same.

Trust yourself. Trust your dreams. What’s your purpose?