My Heart at F22

There’s a setting on my camera’s lens where light pours in, where I savour what I see. I like to hover here. At F2 the aperture is wide open, and when I focus on a particular subject, the background blurs. My image stands alone. By pulling away just slightly from my subject, taking a step back, or adjusting my lens, I dissolve the edges of my lonely subject into soft sighs. This blurring of the lines creates a quiet dreamlike glow where I smooth scars and patch wounds. F2 doesn’t tell a complete story, it is mysterious. But close the lens to F8 and more of the image comes into focus, sharper, louder. Fine details emerge, evidence can be seen in the background. At F16 all mystery is lost and clarity reigns. Emotions arise that weren’t so obvious before, pain can be seen here. At F22 the subject is fully exposed.

But I’ve had a slumber of the heart–the weight of grief overwhelming my mind and heart–allowing little space for creativity, and no desire to hover in the softness of F2. I couldn’t fathom inviting in the light or creating beauty, as my world was hopeless and dark. I tucked my cameras into a cupboard, and left them there, unattended for years. I’ve had a lot of time to think since I returned to California. In fact, just before our move from Beaumont in May of 2021 I created a video that I’ve often rewatched to remind me of the optimism I’d felt when I made it. Just before our move from Beaumont, I’d felt a pull toward my hometown, a beckoning to return to my roots. But it didn’t feel like home when I returned. As I pulled into our driveway on Barton Way in Benicia, it struck me in the center of my chest that I had grown and changed in ways that I needed to, and the place where I’d been raised no longer suited me.

I reassured myself then that Barton Way was just a port along our journey, then reality set in once I walked through the front door. I had returned to a house that needed a facelift, but I had neither the patience nor the bandwidth to take that on while Danny lived and worked in Tennessee. We saw him only three times that year, and I felt a loneliness I’d never before felt in all his years of traveling for business. I was also full of guilt by being frustrated with my role as a single parent, and I was regretful that we had moved from Beaumont. Even worse, The New Southerner was on the back burner because I knew I needed to pivot in order to manage motherhood along with running a business. I had a lot of ideas but none of them felt right without Danny’s help at home. The kids struggled to adapt to their new world, and I was grieving the loss of my business, a business that gave me so much more than a paycheck. More than anything, I valued the relationships I had in Beaumont and the opportunity to be a part of, and a contributor to, such a blessed community. Without those Southern relationships, I struggled to find my place in California, and more often than not, I floundered with new ideas for The New Southerner.

I no longer had the same creative opportunities. So I shifted my focus to my garden. I found refuge and peace in my own backyard–a place to think, to plan, and gratefully, to photograph. My flowers and herbs saved me. I saw beauty with feathered edges. A quietness returned and replaced the uneasiness I had felt since my return. I told myself the glorious weather and the golden light in California every photographer dreams of was the trade-off for leaving Texas. I convinced myself of this, and planted my grief in those wooden boxes. 

First I dug wide, filling my planters with as many violas, pansies, alysum, dahlias, basil and thyme as I could pack in, creating my own patches of wild joy to sprinkle on salads and poke into tiny vases for my window sills. I even gathered their seeds for the following Spring, filing them away in orderly envelopes, all the while trying to wrap my arms around these feelings, pushing against my chest. When I grew impatient with God and the Universe’s plan for me, I dug deeper, amending the soil, turning my tears into the soil, burying bulbs and vegetables. 

Grief is a gardener without soil and seeds.

There are no words fit to describe what I felt when Danny died that following summer. They are tucked away, out of reach. His death remains somewhere in my heart too deep. At the time, I wanted to crawl to the bottom of my planter boxes, pack black earth into my ears and my eyes. I was paralyzed by sadness. I was at a loss at how I would go on without Danny since my world had been tethered to him since I was twenty.

The days I couldn’t lift myself from the sofa I repeated Debbie’s words. Just after her brother died she said, “Together we’re going to take it minute by minute, and when you feel you can handle the minutes, we’re going to take it hour by hour.” Her words, her love, her presence, and countless others’ hands and arms that held me and the kids, made it possible to navigate the loss of Danny. Millions of minutes needed to pass in order to arrive here, in this moment, where words and sentences flow and make sense to me. I now realize the depth of solace my garden on Barton Way had given me. I spent many mornings waiting for the emerald hummingbird to return and flit from one flower to the next, desperately wanting to believe it was Danny, “Hi Hon, I’m still with you.”  

I faced a lot of truths in my Barton backyard. Gannon and Finnley, needing me strong, needing me to formulate our new life plan, which was utterly terrifying without Danny. There was as much praying in my garden beds as there was planting, asking for strength and fortitude to raise my children, asking for peace of mind, peace for Danny, and healing for those who loved him. I prayed he would visit us and planted flowers and vegetables I knew he would enjoy. 

Just after his death a flock of Mourning Doves alighted and remained on my roof for a number of days, and in the months and years that followed, they often returned, sometimes many of them perched side by side near the peak of our rooftop, like an army guarding our hearts. And sometimes only a single dove sat watch. As time passed, my garden became a glorious and living space that not only provided healing, but also represented the life that remained: mine. It didn’t happen overnight but rather minute by minute and hour by hour, with the same hands that held my children's hands as they wept; the same hands that made their favorite cookies and morning lattes; the same hands that created The New Southerner.

One of those hard truths was that I was stuck. I was grieving, and I desperately wanted to move forward. I wasn’t only stuck, I was lost. I was an incomplete mother, friend, and human being. Grief is a deep hole with steep branchless walls, impossible to climb out of. Grief is a gardener without soil and seeds.

I grew tired of faking my reality. I needed something for myself apart from my garden beds. I prayed for direction, for light to move toward. I prayed for an opportunity to bring The New Southerner back to life, so I could use my hands, my heart, my love, and my camera to give back to those who held me when I needed holding. Yet one year became two, and two became three. I could hear the South calling me back. We reached a milestone with two graduations and some very difficult decision-making. I continued to pray.

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As Gannon was finishing his final year of high school this past Spring he had only three colleges he wanted to attend, including The University of Tennessee. UT sent an acceptance letter. Thank you God, the Universe, Danny. It wasn’t easy leaving my family and friends who supported me through such dark times, nor my garden that tolerated my anger and grief. But I packed my favorite potted beauties as tokens of my strength and healing. 

A Sunday in early August, the cars packed, the engines running, and I needed one last walk through my garden. I cried of course, waited, listened, prayed for Danny. I needed his blessing. 

Not a hummingbird, not a bee. Silence…even the wind on Barton Way had stopped. I left the garden sooner than I had hoped, as the kids were impatient to begin our journey. But then there was Danny. In the driveway, Gannon was filming him, “Ma, look up there.” Our solitary Mourning Dove was perched on the peak of our house, quietly seeing us off.

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We arrived just in time for school and the changing of the season. Leaves are falling– reds fading to pink and specks of yellow rocking toward our new doorstep. I’m changing too.

A new mixer has arrived, and I feel hopeful again.

My heart feels lighter.

Bits of my new life are coming into focus.

An herb garden is slowly sprouting.

Film is loaded. Lens set at F22.

Love,

Christine