Preventing Suicide One Walk at a Time

Apologies to family and friends who may have already received this request. This is such an important issue for me that I am trying to use every venue available to get the word out and build support for this great cause.

As a friend shared recently, everyone has been touched by suicide at some point in their life. Perhaps a loved one or yourself contemplated it, attempted it, or even worse, successfully completed suicide. In my own life, there’s AJ, Adrian, Barbara, Dillon, Dimitri, Eleanor, Jeb, Kevin, and tragically, my list could go on.

While I raise awareness about mental health and suicide prevention through my job, I wanted to do more to help those thinking about suicide. In June, I will be joining hundreds of people walking 18 miles through the night in the Out of the Darkness Overnight Walk benefiting the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. I would appreciate any support that you can give for this worthwhile cause.

AFSP is at the forefront of research, education and prevention initiatives designed to reduce loss of life from suicide. Also, they fund a national suicide hotline to help those in crisis. With more than 30,000 lives lost each year in the U.S. and over one million worldwide, the importance of AFSP's mission has never been greater, nor their work more urgent.

Thank you for considering this donation request. I rarely ask folks to support fundraisers, but this cause is different. It’s my hope that the money we raise together will become a lifeline that saves lives of those thinking about taking their life.

You can make a 100% tax deductible donation online here through my fundraising page or if you would prefer to donate by check, print out this form and mail it to the address listed.

If you’re unable to contribute at this time, I understand. All I’ll ask of you is to please keep those in crisis in your thoughts and prayers and save the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline number in your phone – (800) 273-8255 – to get help for you or another person in need at a moment’s notice. Also, feel free to forward this message to friends or share my fundraising page on your social networks. The more money we raise, the more people we can help.

Even in the darkest of days, we are never alone. That’s why I’m walking in June to demonstrate that everyone matters and there is the hope of brighter days ahead. As one of my favorite musicians Tyrone Wells sings, “There is always something more."

Strange Mountain for a Strange Week

Strange image, right? This is the facade of one of the rides at Universal Studios Orlando, and it's a bit haunting.

Not sure why but I felt like today's photograph was an appropriate image to summarize my week. It was a week where primal screaming would be a fitting response to several situations, but in the end, not really worth doing.

Unlike this frustrated gentleman stuck with his mouth open and water running out, I'm hoping for a more peaceful, dignified week ahead. And I'm crossing fingers, toes, legs, etc. hoping for that outcome.

As Aristotle once said:

"There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing."

Well, since that's not an option I can live with, I'll just keep doing something, saying something and being the best person I can be next week and the weeks thereafter.

Just Like a Postcard

I feel it coming. Warmer, sunnier days are approaching. Slowly, but coming soon nonetheless.

While we wait in anticipation of the arrival of spring and summer (and to say so long to winter), let's recall places where the sun shines down on waves and sand.

And let's think about this thought for the day which was said by Satsuki Shibuya:

"Remember to breathe as many of our worries today will probably not be so important a year from now." 

Eerie Lincoln Memorial

What do you do when you're waiting at a long traffic light in the nation's capital? Take a photograph using your iPhone of your surroundings, of course!

I promise I don't talk or text on my phone while driving (and you shouldn't either), but occasionally when the car isn't moving, I do grab my cell phone and snap a quick picture of life happening around me.

Quickly snapping a picture through a wet car window can result in a great photographic moment, like this one of an eerie Lincoln Memorial during a rainy twilight.

Neptune Fountain at Walt Disney World

After walking around Epcot Center and touring the countries of the World Showcase, my traveling feet began to feel itchy.

I've yet to travel across the Atlantic to explore Europe. It's one of the things on my bucket list. I'm hoping that before the end of 2013, I'll be able to scratch at least one of the European countries off my list.

Until then, I will just enjoy our domestic tributes to European treasures like this ode at Epcot to the Trevi Fountain in Rome. While this Neptune Fountain is no where close to the Trevi Fountain, it's still beautiful and will do for now.

Not Waiting for the Big Show

Saint Francis of Assisi once said:

Start by doing what is necessary, then what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.

This insightful statement could be in the running for my mantra for 2013.

When passing by the outdoor America Gardens Theatre at the Walt Disney Resort last weekend, this lone bird perched on one of the empty seats caught my eye and camera. It seemed as if the bird was just waiting for the performance to begin.

It's a great reminder of how we can't just sit by and wait for things to happen. We could just wait and wait forever before anything ever happens. We create action.

Thus, no sitting and waiting for us. As Saint Francis suggests, we must take initiative and start doing the necessary, so eventually we will be making the impossible happen.

Launching into Something Great

Not sure who said this quote, but when you are standing on the top of the world -- or Rockefeller Center in New York City -- it is a thought worth contemplating.

An arrow can only be shot by pulling it backward. So when life is dragging you back with difficulties, it means that it’s going to launch you into something great.

Staring at the Waves

There is not a time I look out at the ocean and not wonder about the meaning of life. I'm fairly confident that as kid at the beach I only focused on swimming in the waves and playing in the sand. As an adult, I have a different appreciation for the ocean.

When visiting friends who lived near the beach in Monterrey, California earlier this year, I could barely sleep because the sound of the waves crashing was so loud. Eventually, I adjusted and let the waves crashing lull me to sleep. What dreams I dreamed those nights! Fantastical stories in which I was the heroine. I don't remember the details, but when I awoke, I felt energized and ready for the day's adventures.

Time spent at the seaside is time well spent. Not only do you get a fabulous view with courtesy sun rays from the heavens, you get a lovely spot to contemplate the universe's biggest questions while evolving your soul. Too intense? Never fear. You could just sit in the sand and catch some sun while watching the tide roll away.

Loving Instagram

When digital cameras arrived on the scene, I balked and said I would be sticking with film cameras. Then, I got a digital camera in my hand and said "sayonara" to 35mm film.

When people started taking photos with their cell phones, I said, "That's ridiculous!" I kept taking pictures with my digital camera until I became an iPhone user and fell in love with always having a decent camera in my pocket.

When friends started using an iPhone app and social photo network called Instagram, I insisted that it's a fluke. Why use a phone app to take photographs when your phone can take great pictures and post them directly to more popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter? Then, I started using it and was converted.

I'll admit I'm a slow tech adopter, but when I commit, I commit. The reason for my conversion? Being able to add automatic filters to my photographs with a touch of one button.

I've always loved adding sepia tone to photographs and with the early rise filter on Instragram, I can alter the color of iPhone photographs quickly and easily. Also, how cool are square-shaped images? With white borders? Love it. I even just printed one of my Instagram photos on canvas.

Today's image of my friend's dog, Agave, is one of my favorite Instagram photographs I've taken so far. It looks like a photograph taken with an older 35mm camera with fancy lighting and light shapers. So, what did I use to take this picture? Just the Instagram app on my iPhone. Awesome.

Both Light and Dark

Today, I'm reminded of one of my favorite quotes from J.K. Rowling's brilliant Harry Potter series. The following quote was said by Sirius Black, Harry's godfather as he tried to ease Harry's concerns about his growing dark magic ability.

"We have all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the power we choose to act on. That's who we really are."

It's a simple idea, yet one that we humans struggle with. It is hard for us to accept that we are each capable of both great goodness and great evil. It would be easier to believe that we are born either one or the other. But the coupling of goodness and darkness is essential to our evolution.

As George Lucas suggested in the Star Wars series, we can choose to embrace the light or dark forces as both reside within us. Once we make the choice, it can define us but it is not definitive; we can still switch sides.

We don't have to look to only pop culture to understand this viewpoint. Most of the world's religions have similar explanations for mankind's dual nature. Since then, modern storytellers like Rowling and Lucas are weaving the same tale.

Celebrating Hard Work and Respites

Across America today, people are observing Labor Day, a federal holiday celebrating the economic and social contributions of workers in the United States. Wikipedia states that it is a day celebrating American workers, but since we are a nation built on the backs of American and non-American workers alike, broadening it to all workers in this country is more appropriate.

So how do we celebrate this day on the first Monday of September each year? We give workers the day off, of course, and encourage them to attend parades, parties and special events. It's a day for hard workers to relax and stop and smell the flowers.

After more than ten years of working, I relish federal holidays and bonus days off. In the hustle and bustle of busy work schedules, it's hard to find the time to enjoy life's moments and fully appreciate the beauty around us.

I came across these flowers on my way to work one spring morning. I debated whether it was worth stopping to photograph the blossoms with my iPhone camera and be a few minutes late for work. I hesitated for a moment and then decided to walk away. After walking a few minutes, I returned to the flowers with my iPhone camera in hand. For some reason, these flowers haunted me and I knew that if I didn't take the picture I would regret it.

That's the importance of taking breaks, respites and holidays. Taking time off allows us to lessen our regrets for not taking moments which will haunt us later. Whether we spend time with our family or friends, or relax indoors, or even visit someplace new on Labor Day, taking that respite will improve our wellness and reduce that weighty burden of missed opportunities.

Gray Clouds After the Rain

Don't you wish rain storms were as romantic in real life as they are in the movies? I can think of hundreds of films that have a scene when the rain falls and the characters caught in the storm either laugh, cry, shout in anger, fall in love or even dance. And while those scenes make for great movie moments, they aren't very realistic.

We rarely witness rain-filled film scenes depicting how people really behave when it rains. In a summer full of thunderstorms, I've witnessed people in the rain rushing about with their umbrellas, grumbling and complaining about the weather. They drive too fast in their cars. While there are a few who feel joy as the drops fall, abandoning themselves and their umbrellas in the downpour, I've never witnessed dancing during rain showers like Gene Kelly in "Singing in the Rain."

I belong to the group who huddle under umbrellas and avoid stepping in puddles during a storm. But, when the sky begins to clear and it's spotted with gray clouds and blue sky, I do find myself whistling. I'll even admit to skipping a little bit on my way once the rain stops falling.

After the storm passes, everything seems lighter. Then, laughing, singing, dancing and the like seem as natural a reaction as it does in our favorite movies.

Gotcha

Yesterday, I bemoaned how challenging it was to capture Ms. Brigitta on camera. Well, today's photograph proves how patience is definitely a virtue.

Also a virtue? Being very, very quiet. Silence fools your photo subject into thinking that you are no longer interested in taking their photograph. Assured they are safe from cameras, they will leave their hiding space face first and hopefully walk right towards your waiting camera lens.

Brigitta, you are very crafty. But, I am very patient. I knew you and my camera (or at the very least my iPhone) would come face to face eventually. And what a very adorable face it is. It was totally worth the wait.

Hide and Seek

A lot of people don't like to be photographed. During a trip in Northern California earlier this year, I learned that some dogs feel similarly.

Meet Brigitta, or at least her back end.

I won't mention here where Brigitta lives or to whom she belongs to (just in case her cuteness inspires you to dog-knap her). But, I will say that she happens to be the cutest, most lively photo subject I've ever tried to photograph.

During my short visit, I attempted multiple times to photograph her with my digital camera. The minute she saw it appear, Brigitta would disappear.

Finally, I thought I outsmarted her by using my iPhone camera to take her picture. As you can see in today's photograph, I think that she caught on that I wasn't "texting" on my phone and took a dive under my friend's coffee table just as I clicked the shutter button.

Next time, Brigitta. Next time.

Big Love

Yesterday, someone on Pinterest pinned a quote from one of the Lord of the Rings movies that made me pause. The post depicted Cate Blanchett's character Galadriel saying, "Even the smallest person can change the course of the future." While Galadriel was referring to the fictional and height-challenged hobbits, I'm blessed to know real people who illustrate Galadriel's prophecy.

Five years ago today, a little baby's passing changed my life.

Ella and I never met. She was the first child of one of my dearest childhood friends who lived in California while I was living here on the East Coast. Ella was small and beautiful, and unfortunately, came into the world with a sick heart. She wasn't the first little one in my life to pass away too soon; my baby cousin Justin unexpectedly passed when he was just a few months old as well. Even Ella's big spirit couldn't overcome her frail body.

While we never met, I felt as if I knew Ella. I grew to know her through photographs and email updates from her parents and grandparents. I grew to know her through the little anecdotes and stories my mother retold from conversations with Ella's family while she was sick in the hospital. And I grieved for her, even though I knew her passing would bring her peace after living a short life filled with painful medical tests, procedures and hospital stays. Although we never met, I felt so much for her and felt her loss so deeply.

Knowing her taught me such a valuable, powerful lesson about myself and life. Loving Ella showed me how there is no distance between people, none at all. We walk around each other like we're strangers, and often feel alone and disconnected. But truthfully, whether we know each others' names or not, we are connected because we share the same creator. We come from the same stock, the same gene pool, the same family.

We are connected whether we see one another or even hold one another. Distance is a figment of our imagination. It's the lie we tell ourselves to hold people away from us and to feel safer and protected from harm and pain. It's a man-made obstacle we place in our relationships.

If this year has taught me anything, it is that grief and feelings of loss are part of our soul's acknowledgement of this connection to each other. It's why we emotionally react to strangers' deaths in mass shootings, natural disasters, and other horrendous events reported on the every night. We may not know the victims personally, but their loss feels like our own. This occurs because we were created to love, and love is the bridge, the connection between each other.

So we must be like Ella. Her body may have been small and fragile, but she loved her family, friends and even strangers as if her heart was as big as the sky. What a different world this would be if we lived (and loved) so boldly.

Even the smallest person can change the course of the future. So true. I'm grateful for Ella and the loving, little (and big) souls who have shared this life journey with me so far for showing me our interconnectedness  and how to love big and boldly.

iPhone Camera to the Rescue

On one of my many morning trips to the Tidal Basin in March to photograph the Cherry Blossoms, I got caught in a thunderstorm. After waiting out the storm under the roof of a National Mall public restroom facility, I ventured out with my camera and starting taking pictures.

Only 20 minutes into the photo session, the battery for my digital camera dies. "That's ok," I said to myself. "I have an extra camera battery in my camera case. Wait. Where is my camera case?"

While I had packed everything in my backpack, including a change of shoes for work, I forgot to put my camera bag into my backpack too. Now, I'm wet, my digital camera isn't working and I'm surrounded by flowers just begging to be photographed.

Before I was a smart phone user, my only option in that situation would be to put away my camera, take in a good mental photograph of my surroundings and then head off to work.

Luckily, my iPhone provides an alternative scenario and I was able to use it to continue photographing the damp Cherry Blossoms. Today's photograph is one of my favorites from that iPhone photo session.

This year's FotoWeekDC Cherry Blossom competition actually has a category for photographs taken with mobile devices and I entered this photograph. To vote for one of my photographs to win their People's Choice award, click here to cast your vote.

Cloudy Sky Sunset

Cloudy skies make for amazing sunsets. Over the past week, we've had cloudy or overcast skies around sunset, producing spectacular color displays in the sky.

It is as if the clouds form a special canvas for the sun's rays to paint the sky between the horizon line and the edge of the cloud cover.

The daily panorama often reminds me of the "calm before the storm," and serves as a quiet, sweet prelude before the rain and thunderstorms begin.

Honoring Your Calling

Oprah Winfrey once said:

There is no greater gift you can give or receive than to honor your calling. It's why you were born. And how you become most truly alive.

Each spring, flowers honor their calling to bloom. Unlike flowers, we don't have to wait until spring for our lives to bloom. We can start blooming any day.

Springing into a New Season

Warmer weather following a mild winter brought spring flowers out much earlier this year. Around every corner in my neighborhood, daffodils, magnolias and now even tulips, are blossoming and bringing color to local gardens.

Even the National Parks Service announced this week that the Cherry Blossoms would be blooming much earlier than originally projected; peak bloom on the Tidal Basin is now projected for March 20-23.

While I'm excitedly planning my spring photo outings over the next week, I am saddened by the early arrival of spring. An early spring means that the plants won't fully develop before blooming. As a result, their stems will be shorter and blooms won't last as long.

Is climate change the cause of this fast-tracked spring? Perhaps. Only time will tell. However, an earlier, shorter spring season does encourages us to stop right now and smell the flowers, because who knows how long we will have to enjoy them this year.

Finding My Words

Last week, my family suffered a great loss. My Aunt Kathy, who I've blogged about previously, passed away after a year-long battle with colon cancer. As my cousin so beautifully phrased it, she fought cancer with great courage and grace and in the end, died surrounded by love.

It's hard to find the words when dealing with such grief, which is why I've been absent from Via My Viewfinder the past two weeks. Preparing for her passing, and then finally facing it, no topic felt right to talk about. Not even my photographs inspired me to blog.

I'm still not ready to say more, so I hope you can forgive me if I share the wisdom of others on the next couple of blog posts. Eventually, I'll find my voice again. Until that time, I hope you enjoy my new photographs paired with the inspirational words of great thinkers.