The Urbexing Diaries | Tommy

We named this spot Tommy.
Because we name all of our abandoned places.
So as to ensure and commemorate their place in our hearts and protection of their whereabouts.

And because, as is always the urbexing code, we take nothing but photographs and leave nothing but footprints.

A few more photos of Tommy can also be seen in this post.

Don't know what urbexing is? 
Check out an explanation in this post here as well as other posts in The Urbexing Diaries.

We Searchers

"I am one of the searchers. There are, I believe, millions of us. We are not unhappy, but neither are we really content. We continue to explore life, hoping to uncover its ultimate secret. We continue to explore ourselves, hoping to understand. We like to walk along the beach, we are drawn by the ocean, taken by its power, its unceasing motion, its mystery and unspeakable beauty. We like forests and mountains, deserts and hidden rivers, and the lonely cities as well. Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as is our laughter. To share our sadness with one we love is perhaps as great a joy as we can know - unless it be to share our laughter. 

We searchers are ambitious only for life itself, for everything beautiful it can provide. Most of all we love and want to be loved. We want to live in a relationship that will not impede our wandering, nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls; that will take us for what little we have to give. We do not want to prove ourselves to another or compete for love.

For wanderers, dreamers, and lovers, for lonely men and women who dare to ask of life everything good and beautiful. It is for those who are too gentle to live among wolves."  — James Kavanaugh || There Are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves

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Had the privilege of photographing these two fellow adventurers yesterday on a little road trip with Meagan. 
Ben and Lulu are the kind of souls I meet and instantly connect with. So looking forward to meeting up with them again sometime in the future for more adventures. 

Back In The Ring

This song.
This song is currently giving me all of the feels.

Do yourself a favor and go listen to it.

That's all.
 

You Don’t Tell The Ocean To Behave

being emotional is not a bad thing, it's what we do with those emotions that has potential for disaster.
i have been told countless times that i feel too deeply, too intensely.
that i am irrational. crazy. ridiculous. sensitive.
that i over share and am overly vulnerable.
i'm too much of any one emotion or feeling.

i will warrant that i have been all of those things at certain times, when i've reacted poorly to my emotions.
but to say that every time i feel something deeply is abnormal and something that should be suppressed-denied-retstrained... that's not right.
god created me as this being who has these emotions inside of her.
sometimes one at a time.
sometimes all at once. 
and that's a beautiful thing. 
i think a lot more of us were created to be that way than the world allows for, or than we let on.

we should not suppress-deny-restrain that.
because girl or boy: we are emotional creatures.

the following words are from Eve Ensler's TED Talk and I find them so profoundly moving.
my friend also wrote a post about this with some very wonderful thoughts that i encourage you to read as well.
//

I love being a girl.

I can feel what you’re feeling

as you’re feeling it inside

the feeling

before.

I am an emotional creature.

Things do not come to me

as intellectual theories or hard-shaped ideas.

They pulse through my organs and legs

and burn up my ears.

I know when your girlfriend’s really pissed off

even though she appears to give you what

you want.

I know when a storm is coming.

I can feel the invisible stirrings in the air.

I can tell you he won’t call back.

It’s a vibe I share.

I am an emotional creature.

I love that I do not take things lightly.

Everything is intense to me.

The way I walk in the street.

The way my mother wakes me up.

The way I hear bad news.

The way it’s unbearable when I lose.

I am an emotional creature.

I am connected to everything and everyone.

I was born like that.

Don’t you dare say all negative that it’s a

teenage thing

or it’s only only because I’m a girl.

These feelings make me better.

They make me ready.

They make me present.

They make me strong.

I am an emotional creature.

There is a particular way of knowing.

It’s like the older women somehow forgot.

I rejoice that it’s still in my body.

I know when the coconut’s about to fall.

I know that we’ve pushed the earth too far.

I know my father isn’t coming back.

That no one’s prepared for the fire.

I know that lipstick means

more than show.

I know that boys feel super-insecure

and so-called terrorists are made, not born.

I know that one kiss can take

away all my decision-making ability

and sometimes, you know, it should.

This is not extreme.

It’s a girl thing.

What we would all be

if the big door inside us flew open.

Don’t tell me not to cry.

To calm it down

Not to be so extreme

To be reasonable.

I am an emotional creature.

It’s how the earth got made.

How the wind continues to pollinate.

You don’t tell the Atlantic ocean

to behave.

I am an emotional creature.

Why would you want to shut me down

or turn me off?

I am your remaining memory.

I am connecting you to your source.

Nothing’s been diluted.

Nothing’s leaked out.

I can take you back.

I love that I can feel the inside

of the feelings in you,

even if it stops my life

even if it hurts too much

or takes me off track

even if it breaks my heart.

It makes me responsible.

I am an emotional

I am an emotional, devotional,

incandotional, creature.

And I love, hear me,

I love love love

being a girl.

The Hunger To Move

I saw in their eyes something I was to see over and over in every part of the nation- a burning desire to go, to move, to get under way, anyplace, away from any Here. They spoke quietly of how they wanted to go someday, to move about, free and unanchored, not toward something but away from something. I saw this look and heard this yearning everywhere in every states I visited. 

Nearly every American hungers to move.

— John Steinbeck 

Caroline || Senior Portraits

Worse than not realizing the dreams of your youth would be to have been young and never dreamed at all. || Jean Genet

a b c

letters of note.
small and unassuming.
lower case.
times new roman. 
typecast.
characters.

 

Don't Go Back To Sleep

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don’t go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.

Don’t go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill

where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Don’t go back to sleep.

— Rumi, from “Quatrains”.

Where You Came From

we stood there in the kitchen, the kitchen of a house whose interior resembled that of a boat's.
(in which case it would be more accurate to say we were in the galley.) 
toasting to the knuckles, not the glass, because that's how sailors do it.
and with time worn eyes he looked at me and said:

"i'll never forget, i was worried about something one day and my mother said to me: 'well... never forget who you are and where you came from.'"

such simple and straightforward words. 
and yet, they were words i knew i would hold onto for some time to come. 
words that would center me, when i was feeling uncentered.
as we are all apt to feel from time to time.