sometimes, i really don't know what i'm doing. i get an idea and try to realize it with the skills and resources at my disposal. sometimes i fail. sometimes i succeed. sometimes i succeed, but the result is not what i'd envisioned; sometimes, that's okay, too.

no matter what, though, the journey from idea to conclusion is the most important part. it is the experience of having made an effort to reach a dream which is my reward, for any dream that can be attained isn't a true dream in the first place.

that journey has meant many, many different things in my life. it has meant driving for fourteen hours at a stretch, or staying awake for four days. it has meant going to school, and leaving it. it has had me dangling from cliffs, whether they be physical, emotional, or psychological. it has led me to the depths of depression and the heights of love and ecstasy. it has brought before my eyes books, cameras, maps, drugs, women, and uncountable dawns and dusks.

the point is not whether you succeed or fail - these are words, these are opinions, these are perspectives on a situation which very often are applied to you by other people. the point is whether you learn from the experience, and the joy is that it is impossible not to learn from the experience.

(red rocks, las vegas nevada. june 2007. my hair is longer now, and those boots are destroyed. picture taken by melissa m.)