Tuesday, June 3, 2014

A letter of thanks to Kiqe Bosch


©Kiqe Bosch 2014
There may be nothing as inspiring as seeing an image so powerful your breathe is stolen for a moment. As your eyes take in the image your soul weeps, with joy and sorrow. You can see the pain and strife, but also the will and force of this being in front of you. Tears come to your eyes as you take in the beauty in front of you. Time stops for a moment, you dare not question her story, you see it there plain as day. You see the strength that almost never was.

There may be nothing more terrifying than the moment when you realize that this image in front of you, this strange being of beauty and power, is you.

Words fail to describe the emotions I felt as I looked upon this image for the first time. I couldn’t even begin to comprehend that this was me, my body, my heart, my soul. Yet there I was, and I could scarcely believe. I’ve spent hours stringing words together always coming up short of what I wanted to say. How could I ever express properly what a gift Kiqe has given to me?

Terrifying                                                                                                  
Humbling                                                                                  
Sorrowful                                                                               
Powerful
Lonely
Beautiful
Joyful

What a gift I have been given, to see myself through the eyes of another.

Not as the broken girl, the damaged girl. Not as the strange one, the one who has no hope. Not as the one who could do no right, not the girl who deserved no love. This is not the unwanted daughter, not the desired first borne son. This is not the girl who surrendered.

She is all of it.  She is the pain and suffering, the product of damage and abuse. She is her scars, worn proudly for the world to see if they only dare look.
She is strength and survival, acceptance and forgiveness. She is more than what you see.

Kiqes photos have never ceased to amaze me. He does not take pictures of bodies. He captures moments where souls are true and free. He finds our truths and sets them free. Kiqe sees people, and he shows us ourselves.

What greater gift could we ever receive?

Thank you Kiqe, with all my soul

Isabella Rose

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Morning moments as time flies swiftly by

It's amazing what you think about when something is about to come to a close. Because really what I find is that, even up the last minute of the hour it doesn't seem real. I could spend the entire day packing and cleaning, but until that moment, as you are watching a place disappear into the distance. Well it's just not real. It still feels like this will all last forever. Which as we know of course it does not, but the feelings that get all wrapped up in the moment.

Now don't get me wrong, I know everything changes (obviously as I can't seem to stay in one place for more than a few months) and know everything ends. The thing is, when that becomes real. For example, today. Today we disassemble the dance floor and tent (woot! Cinder blocks, top hats  and doilies, tent states  and the tent and we. And don't forget all of the wooden shims) oh and the kitchen as well. So many things, all of the nights. But as I am sitting here, the reality just won't hit me. I know that in 48 hours will be back in Boston (hopefully asleep) and soon to be heading to Flurry, providing the weather doesn't impact all of these plans, but really who knows. (As I am sure you can imagine all of these feelings are based on my actually making it to boston without any of my flights getting cancelled.)

So mostly this is just me here, rambling about the things I think about, such as the strangeness in life and how this is a feeling I am so use to and don't even mind. Just another set of feelings to catalogue and examine, it happened leaving England, Ann Arbor, Ireland, Brasstown, Pinewoods, Boston. And I know it will continue as that is just the way life is


Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Tent Adventure!

So here we are, in St Criox, preparing for a yoga retreat and dance vacation. And we have built a floor and created a stage and put up a tent (not nessisarilty in that order)
But alas sometimes unexpected moments happen, such as this 





So as you might be able to guess we just had to do something, really it wasn't a choice. 
We got a ladder rigged so we could get up to the problem area

 Getting a closer look we were able to see that one of the straps that holds the bucket (the bit that the top of the tent pole sits in) had come undone, once we got the tent pole down (as it has to come down before it could go back up!) we were able to see that the top of the pole had developed a sharp edge and had almost sawed thru the strap holding the buck. Oh dear, oh dear. 





But back to what I was saying!

So repairs, right? And Repair we did
By climbing up the latter and sewing a patch strip onto the problem area, while the tent it being stabilized by two people with ropes down below (if you ask me later I will describe it better)


So that was fun and exciting, woot very tall ladders! 
Ad then the tnts was fixed, Huzzuh!!!



So maybe no more tent disasters...

P.s. Photo credit to Shawn Brenneman, she took all the photos and is just generally awesome 





Thursday, January 16, 2014

So an actual update in January

Ok so I may have left the mainland....
Huzzah is really what I have to say about it, St.Croix is (yep I'm going to say it) magic. And I know that so much of that has to be with being in a place that I am not familiar with and that I love being in places where everything is green and growing and alive and warm. So I am quite happy. I arrived yesterday and have already had some awesome adventures. Such as walking to 2 different beaches already. Warm sand on your feet and the sun over head, so so good. And just staying is the ocean until you turn into a prune enjoying the waves. Being able to sit in the sun (I already have so many more freckles that I did last week) and just listen to the wind ands rare out into the distance watching the water :)

Maybe my kind is too spinny to say much more about it, but if you ever can visit (and you can it is not as difficult as you think!) you really really should

Disclaimer take 2

Alright here we are again, I saw that my previous disclaimer got deleted somehow, most likley my fault. Oh well.
So here is is again, I'm attempting a blog like thing of (mostly) adventures of mine, it will possibly also have rants and other such things that I am prone to in my own mind. Oh so maybe I am sharing those things... See this is why I am posting a disclaimer.

I not making any promises, the writing may not be great (it might even be bad) who knows how I will be with updating (maybe sometimes a lot and maybe sometimes not at all... As the previous months have shown)

Part of why I am trying this blog like thing is because jthere are many people that I love keeping in contact with, and often people ask, "what have you been up to?" So I'm trying to make this a way of sharing, if I spent all of my tme emailing everyone my adventures I wouldn't have time to have them, and that would be sad. So this is once way of keeping in contact with the world, or at least my fraction of it.

I am of course sending out postcards and I not have so many people to send them too! Quite excited about this I must say.

So if you are still reading this then cool. maybe you'll be reading more sometime soon, so you should also know that sometimes I say things that are not perfectly correct and if you know me you know I never ever want or intend to hurt another soul in this world, but I have my opinions as we all do. So just in case don't Ever be offended by something I say and write, call me out on whatever you wish but know that we just all can't agree on every little thing all of the time, k?

Alright that's its for my disclaimer.

<3 Isabella Rose