photography and life
over at charlenekuyrkendall.com/personal and you can check my WEDDINGS + PORTRAITS blog as well (that one focuses more on my wedding and portrait clients).
If you ever find yourself here, just come on over to either one of the two new blogs.
see you there, then!!!!
It is no secret that I love Hallowe’en. Apparently, it’s becoming very apparent that my daughters love Hallowe’en as much as I do, especially when it comes to trick ‘r treating, dressed up and going out in the twilight along with other roaming monster kiddies. This year is the first year we’ve gone trick ‘r treating in the Bay area of San Francisco, and I am duly impressed by how some neighbors have gone all the way out in turning their houses into proper haints and horror houses. Even the two little hurricanes were impressed.
This year, Izabelia is the Pink Demon and Lucrezia is our little darling Frankenstein Girl. I spent several all-nighters sewing their tops, adding more tulle to their old tutus that I had made for previous Hallowe’ens. Ordered stuff online just to complete their costumes.
I tried to post a video, but unfortunately, it exceeded the limits. However, you can check it out on my Facebook.
Here are some pictures of the Pink Demon and Lil’ Frankenstein Girl:
I’ve been trying to get settled in the new rental house in the East Bay, and this upcoming Saturday will be my Lucrezia’s third birthday. I feel bittersweet yet excited. Sad, too. I am a walking mess of conflicting emotions. You see, my Internet friends, the reason behind the tangled feelings I’ve been experiencing is that not once did Lucrezia get to celebrate her birthday with the whole family, unlike her older sister and brother.
I wish ferociously that she will get to celebrate her birthday with her grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, family friends in addition to me and her dad and Izabelia.
It’s a big deal to celebrate someone’s birthday. We made a choice to bring Lucrezia into this world because we wanted her, and since the day we found out we were expecting her, we’ve loved her.
Tim tells me not to worry or to care deeply about this glaringly oversight, but I just want to make sure that Lucrezia knows she’s loved. People are sensitive about those kinds of things, especially children. So I overcompensate. Big time.
Lucrezia . . . we are ecstatic that you are born to us who love you deeply, truly, madly, and that you are wanted in every way imaginable. The day you were born was the happiest and luckiest day of my life because you were and still are my anchor to this world I live in. The past three years with you, I cried out of joy and sorrow, I laughed with you and marveled at your creativity and beauty. The way you see the world taught me how to appreciate the little things here on Earth. I may be unable to give you everything, but I try my best, and I hope you will forgive me for all my failing ways. Sometimes the world conspires against me, but it is not for the lack of trying.
We moved to San Francisco in our search for a new life, to have our new beginning and to create our own family memories and new traditions. Your dad and I might doubt ourselves for making such a momentous decision that uprooted you and your sister from everything you knew, but you, Lucrezia, you never got to know the world we left behind, and for that I am bittersweet. I tried my best to have you spend time with your Rexford side of the family for 8 months prior to moving here to San Francisco bay area, and I saw that you blossom under the loving attention of your grandparents and Gran-Gran. I am so thankful for giving you that gift.
My sweet November child, happy 3rd Birthday when you turns 3 this Saturday. It will be a wonderful, intimate, close family only, the four of us, taking you to a place you love the most, where the ocean meets the land under the bright blue sky, where the waves kiss your toes, and where we all will let go of your balloons so they can carry your birthday wishes to up above to the heavens where the angels can see your wishes come true . . .
underneath the night sky with burn-out worlds, their ghosts the starlight, I sit here at the laptop, thinking about my life, the choices I have made, and whether the direction I’ve found myself following along is the one I wanted to go along with.
At twelve, I was going to be a woman who knew the world on intimate terms, living and breathing in different air on different continents, words and images made real by my cameras both still and moving, and I’d be unencumbered with babies and fools for lovers.
At seventeen, I wanted to be an American expatriate living in Paris with houses in Istanbul and Barcelona, a filmmaker who made movies I wanted to watch, not what the studios wanted to finance. I was going to be an auteur and a conceptual artist.
At twenty-one, I fell in love. Stupidly. Crazily. And my life became derailed.
At thirty, I let go of that first love and found myself in a job that was utterly so unlike me.
At thirty-three, I married the man I truly love.
At thirty-four, I became a mother, and I wondered at the insanity I sprouted back when I was twelve. How could I not ever wanted a child like Izabelia? She was the best of me. She is my Paris, my Istanbul, and my Barcelona. My dreams made flesh.
At thirty-five, I became a mother again, and I felt as if I have gone supernova. At thirty-five, I knew the best and the worst simultaneously. I flew higher than the heavens above, and I fell further than the nadir of Hades itself. I died, and I was reborn. My darling Lucrezia, she gave me back my life, and held fast to me through the storms that threatened to tear me apart. She is my world, and I skipped along the edge of fury toward certain people for trying to destroy my family.
And, now that I am thirty-eight, I am certain of only one thing: as long as I am sustained by the love from my husband and my daughters, I can conquer the world by being who I am, ferocious-proud and humble-awed, and let the world see me as I am.
Izabelia with her tears of rage, just like her mommy would tear up whenever she becomes mad . . .
I photograph my children and the people who wander in and out of my life in their moments true as my momento mori.
I remember my angst over my youngest baby last year or so, worrying about whether she will be normal, typical child. Turns out my fears are largely unfounded. She is a rambunctious little hellraiser, just like her older sister. Speaking in sentences, and signing a lot more. She’s tough, yet very much into being a princess. She loves to dig into my purse and whip out a lipstick, often painting her lips without my knowledge, and if she’s lucky, time enough to also apply mascara and eyeshadow.
She is my thinker. She’s my artistic child. She’s magical. She’s everything I ever wanted in a child that I did not know I’d wanted, but am so glad because she’s such a free-spirit old soul. She is quick to anger, but quick to forgive. Quick with her love, yet enduring.
She loves to totter around in high-heels and would request that her hair be done up in bows, yet she love to roll around in the mud and dancing in the rain. She loves to read books and must have her daily dose of fine animation.
Silly of me to be such a worrywart, but I’m so glad I had her tested, and the only problem was basically the language acquisition which is understandable considering her parents being Deaf. Being in speech therapy has done wonders for her, and also older sister is benefiting from speech therapy as well.
This summer I have not blogged much. A lot has happened, what with the bad luck we’ve been having with practically all of our vehicles.
Our Mazda Tribute 2002 had a small fire under the hood due to a defective ABS modulator that apparently did not get replaced when we took the small SUV in after receiving the recall notice. It happened on June 16th, and now it’s August 15th, and the Mazda is still in the shop. Why? Because they no longer manufacture ABS modulator/connector part, thus they had to look around for companies that will manufacture. They found one, but it was to take 2 weeks or so to build one. Another part of the long wait is awaiting for the go-ahead from our insurance. I was told that this week should be the week I’d get to bring it home.
So in the meanwhile, I’ve been driving my parents’ Dodge Ram or Toyota Highlander. Well, since Tim and I used Dodge Ram to go to DC Metro to close up our storage, and trailer-haul our stuff down to Baton Rouge where we’d another storage (a bigger size) to close out, the truck developed a weird whining sound. Then there was the shredded tire and bent rim on Toyota Highlander. I made a turn and there was a jagged edge on the curb that just shredded the tire to hell. Then there’s the accident on I-40 a few days ago with my husband driving the Pensake 26-footer, outside OKC, where a van drove across lanes into the path of my husband, and he had to brake real hard, tires screaming and burning rubber on the blacktop, and the bed of that truck started to turn, the force pushing Tim into the next lane, and a pick-up truck passing got its wheel clipped and that spun it around and around, its tire blown out from hitting on the bottom rung of the steps under Tim’s side. ‘Course, my husband got the ticket, not the van driver, even though, it’s obviously that van driver’s fault all because Tim’s truck skidded into the next lane from the van cutting in front of Tim from jumping lanes at high speed.
It’s ironic because years ago, my boyfriend (not my future husband at that time) did the same thing the van driver did, and he got the ticket even though other drivers got hit by other vehicles trying to avoid my boyfriend. Same scenario, yet different reasons for tickets. Both my boyfriend and husband are deaf, so I notice a pattern here: a lot of times, a deaf driver who’s involved in accidents like these tend to get the ticket regardless of who’s at the fault. I can understand my boyfriend getting the ticket, but not my husband.
Anyway, enough of my rant, we are now in middle of moving to San Francisco bay area. I am awaiting news of whether we got approved for renting a small, about 800-sqft, apartment. Tim is putting our household into storage until we have a place to move in, and I am still in Arkansas, waiting for my car to return from the shop, our daughters with me, playing outside under the Augustine sun.
It is a rare thing to have me in a photograph with my children because in the House of the Kuyrkendalls, I am the photographer. I do give full access permission to my husband, but he does not reach for the camera as often as I do. Thus the scarcity of images of me.
This is taken after we came out of the hospital building after visiting my mom while she was recovering from her bladder removal surgery . . .
Back in 2009, Tim took my words to heart, “Go for it, Tim, so that you can go beyond what’s holding you back here at LSD (Louisiana School for the Deaf) where he had worked the past fifteen years in various positions, the latest being the Residential Team Leader of the High School Dorm. He applied for the position of Dean of Students position where he met all the qualifications, but got passed over, according to one of the inner circle members of the student life department, that he cannot communicate via the telephone. Hello? We are living in the days where everyone virtually communicates via text, email, and videophone. We got the VRS as well. If this is the truth, according to that person’s statement, then that’s flat-out stupidity right there holding company with bigotry, racism, sexism, etc . . . in its coat of audism.
Thus, on May 13, 2011, Tim, my husband, graduated with a Master’s in Mental Heath Counseling from Gallaudet University, and I’m so damnest proud of him. He made huge sacrifices in leaving the security of his job, relocating us to Washington, DC, and saw very little of us while immersing himself in the studies, and from January 2011 until May 1, 2011, was over in San Diego doing his graduate internship with the DCS agency so the only way we could see him was via videophone courtesy of Gmail video call because his rental did not have the videophone such as provided by Sorenson. Every night, if humanly possible, we managed to call each other, my Central Standard Time to his Pacific Standard Time, and he’d bid our daughters good night after playing games with them such as fishing where he’d cast out an imaginary fishing rod and Izabelia would hook her little index finger and hook herself, then would wiggle as Tim slowly “reeled” her in, and if her “hook” plopped out of her mouth, then Tim would “stagger back as if he has lost the fish on the reel line.” Then they would switch places, with her being the fisherman and Tim being the fish.
With Lucrezia, her daddy would just tell her little bedtime stories, making up creatures familiar and strange, and would have Lucrezia melt down into guffaws and blowing kisses at him.
The day Tim came home was the happiest day, and our daughters were the first to run up to him and throw themselves at their daddy, and they hugged and laughed. We cried tears of happiness that he’s simply home for good now that his graduate studies are done.
But – bad news – we were broke and there was no possible way we could make the trip out to Washington, D.C. so Tim could participate in the ceremony. It made me sick to my stomach because as the only living witness to his hard work, beside our daughter, I saw how much he put in hours, how much he sacrificed a lot of things so that he could create a better future for all of us, only to find himself at the end unable to walk the walk up to the stage and accept the diploma was a bitter pill to swallow. It simply cannot be, but it was looking that way. On Wednesday, after his video conference with his classmates and professors, the most wonderful miracle occurred. From family on both sides, came graduation gift money, and we were able to go, after all.
The catch is, the hooding and awards ceremony was the next day, in less than 24 hours. Could we really make it? It’d literally be a push to the pedal all the way to DC, through the night, taking turns at the wheel while our babies slept in the back seat. So off we went, in the night, and we arrived at 2:30 pm, switching our dirty clothes for clean dress clothes in the rest area an hour out of DC and arrived just in time for him to get his place in the line for the hooding which was due at 3:15 pm. Whew!
Thank you, family, for making this possible for Tim to see it through to the finish line.
Okay, I admit to one of my secret “mommy” vices: bringing home free magazines related to anything kids, especially activities, etc . . . I pore over their pages, going to websites as advertised on their colorful ads, making lists and lists that I will do this and that for my daughters . . .
only to end up not doing them at all.
Not this time! I am looking over the April issue of Kid’s Directory for NW Arkansas. I was planning to pick up “Peekaboo” magazine, but Bella Jack’s boutique (which, incidentally, I ended up buying gorgeous necklaces for the girls) did not have it. Did I imagine the title? I will check out another kids’ boutique shop (either on Emma or over there in Rogers at the Pinnacle Hills) to see if I actually did not imagine that title.
I grew up here in NW Arkansas and I used to call it the shitsville, wanting to run away and join the circus or be enrolled in the performing arts school in NYC, but no, my parents had to have me “stuck in the middle of nowhere.” When I was 3, my mother convinced my dad to move us out to Fayetteville because of preschool program for me at Bates Elementary (where I attended from tender age of 2 so yeah, my mom drove me back and forth over the mountains between Fort Smith and Fayetteville).
Now, I am not knocking NW Arkansas because where else can you find waters that run so clear down to its bottom and can see all the rocks, fish, etc? We who hail from the Ozarks have our own secret swimming holes and guard them ferociously near to our heart. My dad has all of his favorite fishing spots scattered all over the Ozarks. We are serious fishermen around here. Tons of hiking and backpacking gear to find for our roaming through the woods and forests, going down the creeks and rivers, and camping out underneath the brilliant stars. I remember how Tim exclaimed to me, “This is the first time I have ever seen stars like this, so near as if I’m about to touch them!!!” This is the guy who have camped out in the Yellowstone park and drove through the storms in the Dakotas, and fished in the sea, so to have him actually say that made my heart sing, even though I still felt as if I’m still stuck out in middle of nowhere.
Anyway . . . the whole point of this post is what should I have Izabelia and Lucrezia do in the middle of nowhere as I thought.
I was wrong. There’s tons of things to do. The last time I have lived longer than a week or so was way back in 2002 after I came home from Savannah College of Art and Design to stay with my grandmother after Grandpa FL passed away.
Thank god for such magazines. I’m making lists and lists for my girls to do, and this time I’m committed to carrying them out. There are so many choices for me to list, but top of my list are those that will have my kids dance and make art, then down the list are the little outings to different places of exploration and magic.
I try to include at least one photo, so here’s Lucrezia from that day she played in the field of light and shadow, relaxing in her Gramma’s lawn chair:
Ever since Lucrezia could sit up, she loved to be pushed in the swing. It’s hard for me to take pictures yet take pictures of her (hence tons of video of her riding high in the swing while pushing her as it’s much easier), so it’s fun to see her push the swing herself . . .
Enjoy . . .
