It’s really cold here in Minneapolis and it’s expected to be cold for a couple of weeks. I haven’t braved the below zero wind chill to go out walking and I probably won’t until it warms up a little bit.
So today I am searching for an
Antidote for a Polar Vertex
What I’ve settled on is to look back at my photographs from my first trip to Hawaii in 2011.
It was in 2010 when I took my first photography workshop in Minneapolis and fell in love with photography. After attending the workshop I purchased my first DSLR camera and began a love affair with photography that continues to this day. So I was just beginning to learn how to make photographs when I signed up for a photography workshop on the Big Island of Hawaii.
I was working as a software engineer when I decided to sign up for a photography workshop in Hawaii with a teacher I had never met. It was one of those leaps of faith that I have periodically made in my life based upon some inner certainty that I needed to do this scary thing. I didn’t know a single person who would be attending the workshop and I wasn’t sure that I would be able to keep up with the group or even be able to sleep while I was there because of some chronic pain issues.
But I went, despite my fears and misgivings.
Laundry day for me at Akiko’s (washed everything by hand in the kitchen sink)
It was a challenging 10 days. As an introvert I sometimes felt overwhelmed by being in a group of 10 photographers, many of whom knew one another. Each day for 10 straight days we would meet and discuss photos after breakfast. Then at mid-morning we would head out in the van with our camera equipment and water bottles and sometimes not return until late evening.
What stands out for me now about that trip as I look back at it, is how deeply unhappy I was in my life at that time. If I had met myself during that workshop I wouldn’t have liked me very much. I feel like a totally different person now than I was then. At that time my health was very poor. Work was stressful and no longer as satisfying as it had once been. I had difficulty sleeping, was in pain most of the time, and could not do all of the things I wanted to do.
Though I didn’t know it then, attending that workshop would
Change my life
When I arrived in Hawaii and met Akiko, the owner of the bed and breakfast where our group stayed, I knew I was speaking with an old soul. She picked 4 of us up at the airport in an old car that I wasn’t sure would hold all of us and our luggage and made an immediate impression on me. Akiko was then and still is a force of nature. Our first stop leaving the airport was at a local restaurant for a take-out supper meal for our small group. Instead of having the restaurant pack the food in disposable plastic or cardboard containers, Akiko brought in covered dishes and pans from home to hold the food. She wanted to prevent plastic and cardboard container waste. That was a perfect introduction to Akiko.
A photo of Akiko (on the right) with a friend.
A former dance and theater teacher at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, she bought an old abandoned gas station, and two abandoned houses in a former sugarcane plantation village near Hilo, Hawaii. She slept on the floor in a sleeping bag and cooked on a camp stove while she slowly cleaned, repaired and reclaimed the buildings creating a Zendo, an art gallery, and Buddhist Bed and Breakfast. All of her dishes were old and mismatched probably purchased at garage sales or the local Goodwill store. Rooms in her B&B were clean and simply furnished. Everywhere you looked there were small handwritten signs encouraging conservation, kindness, and mindfulness.
Akiko was like a mischievous elf with a laugh that makes you smile just to hear it. And she doesn’t mince words. Outspoken and blunt, but also kind and wise, she became a good friend to me when I returned to her place in the winter of 2012/2013.
“I believe in kindness. Also in mischief.”
―
One evening during the workshop several of us gathered around her kitchen table and talked about how each of us wanted to make changes in our lives. We wanted to do what we loved but could not figure out a way to support ourselves doing that. Akiko asked how much money one really needed to live well and suggested that there were things in life more important than money. She was one of the most frugal people I’ve ever met. But it was a purpose-driven frugality. I’ve never met someone who lived her values as congruently as she did.
Though I struggled physically during the workshop, I came back home determined to figure out a way to quit my software engineering job and take up photography full-time within a year.
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
―
Turning Point
One month after I returned from the photography workshop in Hawaii I was laid off from my job. I’m not sure I would have had the courage to not look for another software engineering job and start doing what I love if I had not met Akiko and had that conversation at her kitchen table. And I don’t know for sure but I’m pretty certain that I would not be nearly as happy as I am now either.
Meeting Akiko and then being laid off from my job so soon afterward was a turning point in my life.
Hidden Gifts
How lucky I was to meet Akiko and to then have the gift of being laid off so soon afterwards. Some gifts, like a job layoff, don’t feel like gifts at the time they are given. Only in hindsight can one see clearly what is hidden in the moment. I give thanks every day for the life I now live.
I had a lovely walk down memory lane writing this and going through my photos from my 2011 trip to Hawaii. I hope you enjoy these warm weather photographs made by a “baby” photographer just beginning to learn her craft. Perhaps they will also be an antidote for the polar vortex for you.
May you walk in beauty (and stay warm and safe).
A View of Akiko’s House (one of several that comprise her bed and breakfast).
Photo assignment during the workshop — ask people if you can photograph them. Don’t stop until you get 3 “No’s” — I stopped after the third “yes.” This was my favorite.
My room at Akiko’s B&B
It’s a jungle out there. Behind the B&B there was a somewhat wild area with banana trees, breadfruit trees, etc. I saw this guy catch and eat a skink that looked bigger than he was. It was rather terrifying. This is the after picture.
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