The Power of Words

I had my first session with a creative business coach yesterday, and wow is the word. I’m already feeling more focused, grounded, and ready to take on a few next steps that I’ve been avoiding for many months.

One of the biggest takeaways from this meeting was word choice. My coach share with me a quote by W. H. Auden: “A sentence uttered makes a world appear where all things happen as it says they do.” This is just as true in writing poetry and fictional worlds as it is in the creation of our own worlds. Now that’s not really new information, I know. But yesterday I was given some very clear examples of just how powerful this is.

So often, I put a lot of extra pressure on myself by the words I choose to use around my work. And I have no clue I am doing it most of the time. While talking with my coach, I began to go off on a tangent about the heaviness of this year-long project. After a moment, he stopped me and pointed out the language I was using… “I have to get this photo done by the end of the week”, “I can’t give up on this project because it’s all I’ve got“, “It feels like a responsibility now because so many people are watching it unfold”. He asked me how all of that made me feel, to which I replied, “Tired, and unmotivated, and like I don’t want to do any of it”. Naturally.

Then he asked me a great question. Why am I doing this? What do I get out of it, removing all other people from the equation? And then I went on for several minutes describing all the wondrous things about it… “I get so completely lost in my photography in the best of ways. It’s like creating my own universe that only I exist in and I can create it to be anything I want”. By the time I was done, I was bright-eyed and beaming. He asked me to notice how I felt now, and how completely different this feeling was from the original one. Amazing.

What I took away from this, is to be oh-so careful about the language I use around my work and life. To protect it fiercely from the wrong words. A simple change he requested I practice was to start replacing the words “have to” with the words “want to”. So simple, yet SO powerful! Just as soon as I started saying “I want to get this photo done today” or “I want to be doing this project” it was like a complete 180 in my motivation and excitement about it.

I know I’m not alone in this one, we all can stand to pay closer attention to the language we use about our work, our life, and ourselves. This isn’t exactly new information I know, but I figured we can all use a little refresher about the importance of choosing the best words. Something to think about and practice in the coming weeks!

Week 20 / Mortal Coil

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I received so many likes, shares and comments from last week’s portrait, I have to thank you all. I really never have any clue what other people will think of this stuff when I put it out there. It always feels a little bit risky, and there is always a little bit of “what if no one likes it?” that goes on. I don’t think that ever goes away! My sincerest thanks to everyone for all the support last week and throughout the entire project thus far… this surge of support came to me truly when I most needed it. When I’ve felt really depleted… you guys really gave me a boost.

I’m continuing to explore ropes this week and likely for a few more weeks, as I’ve been so completely lost in the feeling and meaning behind them. There are so many ways to interpret ropes as a symbol; tension, struggle, strain, resistance, support, strength, cooperation, chaos. This week, I wanted to capture the weight of grief… the way it knots up around you, weighs you down, and exhausts you. I have been tired since the day my fiancé died. At first, I could barely function at all. Two years later, I still feel like I am only operating at 60%. There is this other force inside me that is always requiring that other 40% of my energy. Like any emotion, grief needs room in our lives. If we don’t allow it space, it will take it on its own anyway. If we struggle against it, it won’t let up any easier. It will only wear us out quicker, until we are left exhausted and depleted in its embrace. I try my best to remember to leave room for my grief – to respect it as a part of me – but I still fight it sometimes. I’ve been fighting it on and off for the past few months honestly… and holy hell can I put up a fight. Lately, I think I’ve run out of steam and have been leaning into it a bit more.

I’d like to share a little about the tear-stains in this image… entirely unintentional. My camera gear was having issues and I had a very limited amount of daylight left to get the shot. It was also about 100 degrees out that day. And a few other things had not gone my way that day too. Needless to say, after only a few minutes of failing to figure out why my gear was not working correctly – I had a complete and total melt down. Like a five-year-old. It was ridiculous. I messed with it for at least 30 minutes to no avail, and went into a complete crying fit at least three separate times… which at first was about the stupid camera and how hot it was outside, but soon turned into cursing my entire life and how I just want my old life back and how much I hate the fact that this is my life and that I’m stuck “even doing this project in the first place!!” Eventually I did get it all working again, and once I got started, things began to flow a bit better. But the getting there… ugh.

I tell you this for a reason. Because like the journey of grief (and life) – this project is not easy and is frequently quite a battle. Sometimes it takes my breath away and surprises me with incredible gifts. Other times, it is a harsh reminder that I am SO not where I thought I would be at 31 years old. And sometimes, shit just goes all wrong and triggers all my emotions and I come unhinged in a completely irrational way. And that’s where those tear stains came from. I decided to leave them as a reminder of how grieving leaves us feeling exposed, often ridiculous and constantly exhausted. It is such for each of us in this journey of life and death.

About the Series: Through 40 weekly photos and accompanying essays, 'Still, Life' captures a deeply emotional and psychological journey of what it means to grieve, to heal, and to live on.

VIEW THE FULL SERIES >

- About the Artist -

Sarah Treanor is a fine artist and writer out of Northeast Ohio. She explores connections to nature and personal growth/wellness in her art and writing. Her visual art is available both for private collection as well as image licensing for books, music albums and more. She welcomes encaustic commissions, writing/teaching opportunities and image licensing partnerships. If you’re interested in working together, get in touch here!

Week 19 / Between Two Worlds

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It’s taken me quite longer than a week to finally create this image, but I am so thrilled to be sharing it today. The visual first popped into my mind a few weeks ago, when I was feeling a lot of resistance about this whole project. I felt really stuck, and really tired, and totally unmotivated. A big part of that was coming from the fact that, lately, I have been moving more and more into a new life the past few months. A life that my late-fiance is no longer in, and a part of my own journey in which I must begin to allow room for new people and new experiences that he is not sharing with me directly.

It’s beautiful to feel healed enough to begin to take the first steps into whatever my new life will be… making friends where I moved to, trying new hobbies I never imagined I’d try before, growing and changing more and more. I am surprising myself almost each day. It all feels really good, except that it is also a constant reminder of who I wish was by my side for it all. And even if – after two years – that fact is not as immediately excruciating as it once was, it still makes every normal thing in life incredibly exhausting. Because I can no long just make new friends, or try new things. Now, every single thing that is new in life must also pass through my grief. It must be examined from the viewpoint of who I was when he was alive and who I am becoming (which is still so up in the air!). All the new, wonderful, exciting things must somehow fit into this whole complex and intricate emotional world that already exists inside of me. I have no clue how I am doing it.

I think that every new phase or part of grief must be equally challenging in entirely different ways… because navigating this feels no easier or less tiring than navigating the first weeks and months after he died. It feels different. And challenging and scary in completely different ways. But it still leaves me right here… right at this image… tied between two worlds. Exhausted and spent, emotionally, mentally, physically. With each wave of new people and experiences, I am left trying to figure out how to balance it all into this one human being that I am. And at times it can feel like the pull of both my new life and my old life are too much to bear all at once. At times this project itself begins to get too heavy for me to bear, too. And so I give in to the exhaustion, floating, unsure of how to move next. Feeling like I haven’t the strength to move at all.

So that is why it’s taken so long to finish this image. Because I’ve been fighting even creating anything for weeks. And after struggling with that resistance long enough, I realized, it was the very struggle itself I need to talk about in my images right now. And that is when this visual jumped into my mind. I knew instantly what it should look like. Crazy how that happens, once you just surrender, or try to look at a situation differently, bam – there it is.

I’m sure others will find their own meaning for this image, which I always love – especially when you share those ideas with me (so please do!). For me, its about learning to become quiet even when I feel stuck or feel like fighting various parts of my grief journey… because in the stillness is where we will see what we need to. It is also about a yearning to find balance between different worlds… my new life and my old life. This earthly world, and the world that he now exists in. It is about feeling ungrounded, floating, and uncertain of the future… but still finding the strength to hold myself up in that uncertainty the best I can each day. I leave you with a close up below…

About the Series: Through 40 weekly photos and accompanying essays, 'Still, Life' captures a deeply emotional and psychological journey of what it means to grieve, to heal, and to live on.

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Dealing with Resistance

It’s likely no one else has noticed that it’s actually been two full weeks since my last portrait. But oh have I noticed… and been acutely aware of the growing length of time passing by. And still no portrait. The frustrating part is that I’ve actually had the idea for well over a week now… this really powerful visual about the tension of being stuck between two worlds… but still I’ve done absolutely nothing but expertly avoid it. So instead, I decided to share the sketches for the next image and talk a bit about that really freaking annoying thing called resistance.

In every long-term project, resistance will rear its ugly head. Logically, I know this. I’ve done other long-term projects in the past, so I know that there will be points along the road when I will just plain get TIRED of doing it and want to drop everything. I also know this is totally normal and happens to everyone. Yet somehow, I still get completely frustrated with myself when it happens. Which just makes me resist and avoid it more of course. The worst thing about resistance is that I don’t usually know why it’s there or how to make it UNhappen. But I’m thinking what it boils down to is a mixture of exhaustion and fear.

Exhaustion is definitely a big part of it. A long-term project requires a lot of stamina, discipline, and focus. This one in particular is also requiring more and more depth of emotion from me the further I get into it. Mix in a few other variables like commissions and more marketing and trying to locate a publisher for the photo book of the project next year, and it’s easy to start stumbling around and losing focus. This is really the first time on this journey as an artist that I am having to juggle other variables more heavily and also stay committed to the project. And I gotta say… it’s SO not easy!

I’m also flat out TIRED of feeling and examining every last raw emotion that goes through me on a daily basis. This really isn’t anything new. I’ve been feeling exhausted from grieving for two years now. The difference seems to be, that for the first time since my fiancé died, there is beginning to be some room in my heart for things that are not my grief. My counselor has told me this is a huge and awesome shift, that all the hard healing work I’ve been doing all this time is beginning to allow me to embrace more of life again. And it’s a beautiful thing. It means there is suddenly space for new friendships that aren’t focused around grief. It means there is room for new aspects of myself to begin developing – like being a mentor and guide to others, and challenging myself to become healthier and stronger physically. And it’s all really exciting and beautiful – but it’s also pulling me in two very different directions and leaving me exhausted on whole new levels.

And then there is fear. Fear that I won’t finish out the project (despite knowing myself well enough to know that I will NOT allow myself to quit on it). Fear that I’ll run out of good ideas and good images. Why does this keep nagging me? For nearly six months now I’ve proven to myself that the ideas continue to keep flowing – yet still, that fear persists. And of course the fear that once I finish this whole thing, I won’t be able to find a publisher to back it and it will end up in the pile among the myriad of other forgotten projects. And the other side of fear too – fear that it might just blow up into this huge and well-known project and that suddenly there will be all these expectations on me about what I will do after it is done. I think getting so close to the halfway point of this thing is what’s really setting in the fear, because I’m so far in, and so much closer to my end goal, but that’s also where all the pressure lies. Momentum is building, and as it does, it requires more and more energy to harness this beast.

Looking at all of that, it’s no WONDER I’ve been resisting creating my next image. I mean hell, who wouldn’t be? If you were to ask me what the single most important tool is for working past the walls of resistance, I would say to sit down and talk to someone about it. Just discussing this with my counselor for an hour yesterday helped me to see that even if I didn’t get a portrait made this week, I could still create something of value out of this experience and share it here. There is always another way to look at a situation, and sometimes we need another person’s mind to help us out with that. Talking or writing it out also helps it to lose it’s power over us. It gets the block out of our heads which will begin to leave room for us to feel creative again. Somehow just writing this gave me a lot more gusto too… I’m feeling ready to get out there today and make this shoot happen, no matter what. And I’m reminded to not give up. To keep on pushing and challenging and growing and trying. No matter how much resistance might get me stuck sometimes… it’s not the end, its just another part to learn how to work through on this crazy creative journey. Thanks for listening.

"Still, Life" is a year-long self portrait series of living with loss. Based on my own personal journey after the death of my fiancé in 2012, my goal is to explore visually and through words my own internal world of grief and share it as a means of healing. You can find the full collection of images within my Portfolio.

Week 18 / Battle On

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“I just want to crawl out of my own skin” is a thing I said often in the first weeks and months after he died. For the whole first year really. That was my existence much of the time. Every cell of my body – every hair, every pore, every organ, was reverberating a constant and loud message of denial. Every cell of me, bumping up against the truth at every turn, abrasively, painfully. And then violently pushing and pushing, trying to thrust the truth out of my world. No, no, no, no, no, NO, NO, NO NO, NO!!!… vibrating loudly within every inch of me, trying to fight off a reality too painful, too unbelievable to comprehend. This single aspect of his death was by far the most agonizing of all.

I have wanted to create this image for almost a year now. It came to be randomly one day, just an image in my mind, and I knew that it needed to be made. Sometimes I find I need to sit with these visuals a while though, until I feel the time is right to create them. After a session with my grief coach this week, I instantly knew it was time.

I was describing to him my experience of joining the gym – how working out each day and watching my body change and become stronger has so deeply empowered me on so many other levels. And I said to him… “I feel more comfortable in my own skin than I ever have in my life”. He had to repeat it to me in fact, just to make certain I grasped the sheer magnitude of that statement. And he was right… wow. Because just two years ago, I wanted to crawl out of my skin. That is when I knew it was time for this one to happen.

There’s something else I feel I need to share here too. When I sat down in front of this final image tonight to write about it, I was so overwhelmed by how much of my past it spoke of…

I was in an abusive relationship in my early twenties, several years before meeting my fiancé. It was another extremely dark time in my life, and a very lonely one. What I did not expect to find in this image tonight, was part of that story, too. Not only the fear and pain of that past, but also the inner strength that came out of it. Because when I look at the woman in this image… she has not only been through the unbelievable pain of losing the love of her life. She has – at a much earlier time of her life – been pushed and intimidated and made to feel small and forgotten and scared and alone. She has been made to feel worthless and shameful and flawed at her very core.

The woman in this image has been through all of that. And she has fought with every inch of her life for nearly a decade to heal all of these pains. She has fought to become strong so that she could guard herself well enough to remain soft. She is now a woman who is never pushed nor intimidated, and who does not tolerate anyone who makes her or others feel small. She knows her worth, she is not ashamed of who she is or where she comes from, and she knows she is beauty at her very core. She knows how brightly she can shine.

We all have our own story like this. We all have the battles that we have fought, or are fighting through right now. The pains that break down our doors and leaves us battered and bruised. The pain that makes our very foundation of a future crumble beneath our feet. Even if it cannot be seen on the skin… all of it still lies within me, and within you. And I hope that when you meet such pain that you stand up when it knocks you down. That you square your shoulders and look it right in the eye. That you are mindful of what you can gain from it – strength, wisdom, and a radiant inner beauty that surpassed anything you ever imagined yourself to be.

About the Series: Through 40 weekly photos and accompanying essays, 'Still, Life' captures a deeply emotional and psychological journey of what it means to grieve, to heal, and to live on.

VIEW THE FULL SERIES >

Week 17 / In the Ruins

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It can be so easy to not want to sit in the middle of our pain when we loose someone we love dearly. Often times in the process of trying not to feel it all or identify with it, we can wind up in an endless loop of keeping busy and finding distractions. While distracting ourselves IS important – we all need a rest from the heaviness of grief – it’s equally important to give ourselves time to sit in it… to rest ourselves down within the ruins of a world that has crumbled beneath our very feet. To observe. To take note of how this world within us is changing over time. Sitting in the ruins is not about being in a depression or punishing yourself with sadness – it is going into your pain with watchful eyes so that you may know yourself and what has shaped you even deeper. It is to go through what is left and find things of beauty – ripe with sacred meaning and timeless memory – that can be found nowhere else in existence. Things like a deep compassion and understanding of others, or an unwavering inner strength from the fire.

I am continually battling my desire to avoid this place and my knowing that I need allow myself to be here… especially as time has gone on. As I heal, it becomes more tempting to become quiet about it all, to stop writing about it and stop photographing it, to start covering it up and instead fill up all my time with other things. And as we all know, society as a whole prefers this, so it’s all too easy to get caught up in it at times.

I think I’ve been doing that since I came home from Hawaii – where this portrait was taken. For those two weeks in Oahu, I was so beautifully distracted and surrounded with wonder. Not only did I not want to come home to hot Texas summers, I also didn’t want to come home to my story. To my own ruins. That reality which requires so much daily work. Sitting down to write this piece feels like a step in the right direction though… a step towards sitting myself down and allowing it all to be seen and felt.

I realized some important things in Hawaii. While seeing incredible sights and hiking for miles on end, I found myself feeling so ready to welcome new adventures. In a way that I haven’t felt able to since he died. It’s a beautiful realization, but also complex and emotional. A new phase of sorts. For a while now I have felt halfway between two worlds… and now I feel as if I am leaning into the new. Immediately it is scary. And I’m having to learn how to integrate the new into my existing world that still houses these ruins and my grief and my love and my memories. Like being hit my an avalanche, each new turn on this journey seems to surprise me with how it is just as difficult – in completely different ways – as all the parts I have traveled thus far within my heart. But for today at least, I am allowing myself to take a moment to just sit, and breathe, and rest wherever I am.

About the Series: Through 40 weekly photos and accompanying essays, 'Still, Life' captures a deeply emotional and psychological journey of what it means to grieve, to heal, and to live on.

VIEW THE FULL SERIES >

Week 16 / The Listening Place

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When life as you know it ends abruptly, you fall into such a dark place. It leaves you questioning everything. In the space of grief you lose all sense of the faith and trust in the world you once so effortlessly knew and trusted. Things like waking up tomorrow. Or everyone you love waking up tomorrow. And that you’ll go to work tomorrow and do all the other normal life stuff that you’ve done every day before. When that normal life is shattered, you are shocked into whole other kinds of existence that is unpredictable and feels dangerous.

Suddenly nothing is certain or known, and all of life becomes an unfathomably large volume of big and complex questions and fears. It is that carefully complex system that goes on underneath my skin at all times. A whole undercurrent of questions and thoughts and scenarios that run through me… like “Where are you? Are you up in the sky somewhere, or right here next to me still? What is God really to me? How do I truly define that higher power and what is my honest soul connection to that? How to establish a connection to you, and to God? What do I do with all of this? Do I have a purpose, and if so how do I find that? Am I being led right now, right this very moment? Will I meet someone today who is going to be an important part of that purpose of mine? And will I know it? When will I love again? Am I even capable of falling in love again? What am I supposed to do now?” That’s just a tiny fraction of the things that continuously course through my veins now. Even in the middle of a crowd of people, often times this is where I truly am… in the listening place.

I am learning gradually to sit in this space – still and quiet – and to listen for the guidance I need. Listening for the soft whisper of the answers I search for – which often times come in the form of just one word: Trust. Trusting is a lot easier when your life is settled and you feel like you know what to expect every day. It’s a whole other battle entirely when you cannot see anything in front of you. When you’re walking into blackness. When nothing feels like a known and everything feels like danger. That is the place where you can build something powerful though. The kind of inner trust and faith that moves mountains and is unshakable.

I have found when I remain quiet and allow myself this protected listening space inside of me, that I am able to connect with something larger than myself. And from this listening place I find a deeper trust than I ever knew existed… in myself, in a higher power, in the love of my soul mate, and in the unknowns of the journey ahead. That guidance does not always come quickly, or clearly. And it takes me an incredible amount of energy sometimes to decide to trust things a world that feels so unpredictable now. But I keep on trying, trusting, listening, and asking for guidance… and in the stillness of the listening place, eventually, it always seems to come.

About the Series: Through 40 weekly photos and accompanying essays, 'Still, Life' captures a deeply emotional and psychological journey of what it means to grieve, to heal, and to live on.

VIEW THE FULL SERIES >

Week 15 / Surrender

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I’m in Hawaii this week and next visiting a friend, so this week’s portrait is from the beautiful island of Kauai! I wish you could see it here – lush rainy jungle the likes of which I’ve never seen. Powerful coastlines, ancient volcanic ruins, and an immense canyon where you would least expect it. It’s one of the lesser inhabited islands as well, so there are many areas where it feels almost as if you’re the only people who have ever been there. I would venture to say the spirit of this place rivals the Grand Canyon for me – which is my favorite place on earth.

I’ll have to post some more pictures soon just from the hikes we’ve done, but for now… the portrait…

I stumbled upon this incredible location right down the beach from our hotel Friday morning last week. We’d tried to book several other hotels with no luck. Being that I am a firm believer in how the universe and those in spirit guide me… I have no doubt I was led right to this spot to capture my next image. I went out early in the morning while my girlfriends were grabbing breakfast, just to climb around on the lava rock and take some pictures… and my jaw dropped when I came across this broken-heart rock – split almost evenly three ways.

In the journey of grief, to lay in our pain is to lay also within our love. The heart may be broken, it may feel a pain that is unbearable, but it is only because that is where our love resides so deeply. Losing my fiancé has taken me on a journey of learning to find acceptance of my pain… learning to surrender into what is broken. It’s never an easy thing to do. I can always feel the cracks and the breaks beneath me. Learning to accept today does not mean I’ll be able to accept it tomorrow necessarily. It’s a constant exercise to practice in order to find some level of peace.

This image also reminds me of surrendering to something greater than myself – be that called God, the universe, or my spirit guides. A medium I visited once told me – when I feel the most lost and the most in pain – to lay myself out on the ground and spread my arms open to the sky…and to lay this way and pray. I’d never thought to pray in such a way before (and was never really big on praying to begin with before Drew died), but I have done it many times since my visit with her and there indeed has been something powerful about it for me. It feels like I am physically giving myself to some greater whole and I end up always feeling comforted and connected instead of isolated and alone. This image reminds me that – in the raging waters of life, in the pain of a broken heart, there is still a space of peace to be found. I need only be still, and open my broken heart, and love will come through.

About the Series: Through 40 weekly photos and accompanying essays, 'Still, Life' captures a deeply emotional and psychological journey of what it means to grieve, to heal, and to live on.

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Week 14 / Debris

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The debris we are left in during grief can seem insurmountable. Let’s face it – for a while – it IS insurmountable. For a while – months, maybe years, you just have to learn to be in. You have to learn how to find some version of peace with it. This image talks about being stuck in that aftermath of losing someone you love. You are surrounded on all sides… by grief, by pain, by anger, by every other raw emotion in existence. You are also surrounded by thousands upon thousands of pieces of yourself that have exploded out from you – particularly if it was sudden loss. And there you are… right in the middle, knowing that there is no way you can ever fashion this mess back together into the life you had. The pieces are too many. And the most important piece cannot be put back where it was.

There was something about this boggy, dark place that spoke to me when I was out looking for places to shoot. It called to me. It LOOKED like a place I have been and sometimes still find myself. And I will tell you… it was NOT fun to crawl down into this muck. It was scary. I could not see what was below the surface, and all kinds of debris was stirred with each step – slipping past the skin of my legs – feeling like danger. It was dirty. I had big and small bits of debris all over me… in my hair, covering every inch of my body. It was COLD. Being that we just had an unusually cool week here in Texas – that water literally stole my breath away as I dunked myself down in it. Definitely NOT pleasant.

I got to thinking as I began to write about this image though… isn’t that what it should have been? For me to create something that symbolizes a place so full of pain and despair… shouldn’t it feel uncomfortable? Shouldn’t I be willing to crawl down into the mud and the rotting debris, into the icy water that steals my breath? Shouldn’t this project sometimes require me to get extremely uncomfortable? And is it worth it? To both of those, I answer yes. It’s worth it if it makes a different in even one person’s day.

As this project has progressed… I’ve started to have a much different feeling of its purpose. In the past month or so, during the process of each image, I am initially thinking of my own feelings and searching for what will express my story. But immediately as the idea forms, and as I bring the images into the computer to work them, it’s no longer about me. Instead, lately I am thinking of the one person that this image is meant to go to. This is a bit strange to explain, but it feels like being a vessel I suppose. As if my soul knows the exact person it wants to create this image for – someone I have never met nor talked to or seen before. The reason I’ve started to feel this way is because I have found that person several times already. They will write to me or I will hear of their experience seeing my image, and I know instantly that they are the one I made it for and that it found its rightful place. I’m not sure how I know – it is just a knowingness inside me. It’s kind of an eerie concept to me, but there it is.

My hope is of course also that these images will help many many people feel less alone in their grief. Because we always need more of that. I have an enormous support system of amazing people, many who are grieving themselves, and I still have moments where I feel completely and totally and profoundly alone in my grief. That will always happen. Because my grief is not your grief. My loss is not your loss. And there will always be parts that are only mine. But I believe that the more ways we express our grief and engage in the grief of others – through words, music, paintings and photos, kindness – the less alone we will feel. And the more beautifully we will heal. I suppose that is why I make these. I want to feel less alone, I want to heal more, and I want to do it in a way that might help others to do the same.

About the Series: Through 40 weekly photos and accompanying essays, 'Still, Life' captures a deeply emotional and psychological journey of what it means to grieve, to heal, and to live on.

VIEW THE FULL SERIES >

Week 13 / Frozen

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Something incredibly deep happened with this week’s portrait. I honestly do not think I can put into words how this image goes straight to my core – and how shocked I am that it came out of me. As I got further into processing it today, I found myself with tears wilting down my cheeks at least a dozen times. Profound to say the least.

My idea was to capture the feeling of being trapped, frozen just on the other side of where life exists so lush. It is the feeling that my fiancé’s death gave me – being so completely surrounded by vibrant and beautiful life and being so unable to reach it or feel it. Essentially, for me, it is about navigating your daily life with an empty, haunting, deep pain that prevents you from experiencing the beauty right before you.

It is a feeling we will all experience at some point in our life – whether for years or fleeting moments. It might not even come from the death of someone we love. It might come from another darkness we are in that slowly freezes us below the surface just the same. Some of us might spend years here. Some of us might not ever make it out in our lifetime. It’s true. But here is one good thing I do know about this state…

Even in the hardest winters of your life – when you cannot feel a thing for how cold you have become and you feel as close to dead inside as possible – you are still alive. You are hibernating. And if used wisely, this can be a time which gives you incredible strength. A time in which you can come to know yourself to depths of which you have never known existed. And one day, there will come a moment when something will warm your life again. And when that day comes, you will be stronger. You will be wiser. You will be more deeply present to feel every touch and smell every scent of it. And it will be ten thousand times sweeter than anything you knew before the winter. I have known death. I have known abuse. I have known pain and darkness most of my life. And if there is one thing I know for certain, it is that life is always waiting just above the surface. Keep your eyes open and your heart fearless… your spring will come.

About the Series: Through 40 weekly photos and accompanying essays, 'Still, Life' captures a deeply emotional and psychological journey of what it means to grieve, to heal, and to live on.

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- About the Artist -

Sarah Treanor is a fine artist and writer out of Northeast Ohio. She explores connections to nature and personal growth/wellness in her art and writing. Her visual art is available both for private collection as well as image licensing for books, music albums and more. She welcomes encaustic commissions, writing/teaching opportunities and image licensing partnerships. If you’re interested in working together, get in touch here!

The Dream & The Death

Today is a very big day. In just a few hours, I will be loading up nine of my photos and delivering them safely to the local hospital for my first solo art exhibition. It is a lifelong dream come true. And mostly, it has been incredible. It feels like a dream… like I got dropped into someone else’s life all of the sudden and that I got really lucky, because their life happens to be all the things that I always wanted my own life to be. 

But of course, it’s not ALL the things I wanted my life to be. My late-fiance is not here. I may 100% believe that he can see everything I’m doing and he is helping to guide me on this new path… but that doesn’t change the fact that he cannot stand next to me for this moment.

It is especially bittersweet because I was here to see him reach his greatest dreams. After years of hard work – after the two of us sitting on my couch night after night while he taught me more than I ever thought I’d know about helicopters – he finished flight school and got his flight instructor certification. I watched him transform from a someone who was very scared of actually accomplishing his dreams to someone who was totally committed to achieving them. I remember how incredible it was to stand by his side for that. To watch him so fully step into himself was one of the greatest honors of my young life.

In the past few weeks, I am realizing that the journey I have been on for the past two years – since he died – has actually been the same journey I watched him go through in our 3 years together. Not the grief part per say, but all the rest. Grappling with the fear of fully committing myself to my dreams of being a successful artist. Having all I needed in place and lined up before me and still being afraid to step through that open door. Afraid to fail. Afraid of what people would think. Afraid to lose more pieces of my old life and therefore him. Stepping through that door is freakin’ scary no matter HOW bright it looks. It feels selfish. And that voice pops up again and again saying “WHO do you think YOU are? Sit back down”. When you add his loss into that equation, it makes it even more complicated.

Because here’s the thing… this is all happening because he died. All of the choices I have made – quitting my job, moving away, starting over – all the imagery I have created, all the words I have written, all the opportunities that have come into my life. All of it – every single piece – is in my life because he is dead. His death has been the wellspring of everything beautiful in the past two years of my life. And that feels really weird. To be SO grateful for things that are happening because he is dead. It makes you feel like you are being grateful that this person is dead. Logically of course you are not – you are grateful for the gifts that came out of that death – but it feels weird. And I don’t quite know what to do with that. I would give anything to have him back here, but for the first time since he died – that wish would also involve erasing a new part of myself and my life that means a lot to me and brings me much joy. It’s a lot to have rolling around in an already-analytical mind, I tell ya!

So as I pack up all my photos and head out to set up my first show – I know, it’s going to be emotional. I have been imagining it for days now… hanging the last photo up on the wall. Stepping down and walking back to take it all in for the first time. To look on the entire past two years of my life captured through these photos. My entire private world of grief literally up on the wall for all the world to see. It’s going to make me really sad. It’s also going to make me really happy and really proud and really satisfied. It’s going to be all those things – the painful and the positive, the dream and the death, all mixed together. But the best part is that I know I am stepping into the next big chapter of something that he began with me. He bought me my camera and set this whole thing in motion after all. He was there for the first juried show I was in. And somehow, he is still very much here for this next leg of my journey…

Really, very truly, he made every single one of those photographs with me. It’s been a collaboration beyond anything we could have made before he crossed over.

Week 12 / The Waiting

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If you’ve ever lost anyone very dear to you – particularly in a sudden way – you know what it is like to sit waiting for your old life to return. This place is your world between worlds. Your threshold of this life and the afterlife where your loved one is. The edge of the life you were dropped into and the life you had when they were here. Trying to see the past. Wishing to reach it. In grief, we spend many months and even years standing on this threshold… wishing for our old life to return.

I spent much of first year after Drew died in this place… waiting, hoping, begging for his return. Still a part of me doesn’t understand what happened – and waits there. I know this because I continue to have dreams in which my subconscious makes up all number of reasons for why he is not here, trying to process it. No matter how much I embrace this very different but equally beautiful life I was left with, no matter how many beautiful and joyful things have happened in the past two years… still part of me waits. And maybe, I think, a small part of me always will be waiting there for him to return.

About the Series: Through 40 weekly photos and accompanying essays, 'Still, Life' captures a deeply emotional and psychological journey of what it means to grieve, to heal, and to live on.

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Week 11 / Sanctuary

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When you lose a parter, you lose your sanctuary in a very real way. The person you used to go to with your most vulnerable feelings, daily stresses, irrational fears, crazy hopes, ridiculous doubts and horrible secrets is no longer there. You have lost your home and all the safety, warmth and encouragement that came with it. I personally don’t think there is any more debilitating trauma than to lose our sanctuary – whether it be a parent, partner, child, sibling, or best friend.

For my fiancé and I, our home was very much each other. We were deeply bonded. The space between us was sacred – a sanctuary where each of us was protected, loved, and accepted above all else. This was the core of what we shared, and in this, we were home. Nothing has ever made me feel as vulnerable, lost, scared, sad, hopeless, tired and in danger as losing the sanctuary we so carefully and lovingly built together.

I once read a quote that said “The thing with feelings, is to make it safe to feel them all”, and that is what a sanctuary is for. A large part of this “after” life now is about learning to recreate this space in a new way. As it turns out, building the nest for this image was just as powerful as the end moments of laying down inside the curves of it. I was reminded that a sanctuary must be created – piece by piece. That it takes times, and that one must carefully select only the most loving people, encouraging thoughts, and inspiring things to build it with.

Even though my sanctuary now is very different from the one he and I built together, parts of him still surround me there… and it is still the place where all of me is safe and nurtured. For me, this image is a reminder for those times when I am impatient with myself or I begin to feel lost, angry, or scared. In those moments, I am learning now to step back into the gentle womb of my new sanctuary, breathe deep, and allow myself to rest safety until I am restored.

About the Series: Through 40 weekly photos and accompanying essays, 'Still, Life' captures a deeply emotional and psychological journey of what it means to grieve, to heal, and to live on.

VIEW THE FULL SERIES >

- About the Artist -

Sarah Treanor is a fine artist and writer out of Northeast Ohio. She explores connections to nature and personal growth/wellness in her art and writing. Her visual art is available both for private collection as well as image licensing for books, music albums and more. She welcomes encaustic commissions, writing/teaching opportunities and image licensing partnerships. If you’re interested in working together, get in touch here!

Week 10 / The Mask

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Losing someone very dear changes you entirely. It must. And for a time, your identity may feel like is has been lost altogether – hidden behind a darkness that is too big for you to see past. This is a large part of the journey we go one when someone we love has died. It is the search to understand who we are now that they aren’t here, who we will become as we go forward, and how they will be a part of that.

Since he died, it seems I’ve done nothing but look for myself. In every word I write, every photo I take, every relationship I begin or end, every brave new thing I try… each of these informs me of who I am now. It is not who I was when he was alive – I cannot be that girl anymore. It is instead, who he is helping me to become. This is who I am always observing.

It’s a tireless trek to say the least. A messy, lost, wandering, humble journey. A balancing act – with one hand down to the darkness and one raised to the light. One to my pain and one to my joy. Both of these are within me – often fighting to exist at the same time. I try my best to create balance between them in order to heal. I am learning it’s equally important to allow the light to warm me, just as much as to allow for the pain to mask over me from time to time. And that sometimes, it is okay to allow both of those to wash over me all at once.

If you’re in the midst of a deep loss of your own, you may fear that you will never quite find yourself again. That you will never be able to see past the pain and see yourself again. I can tell you – from where I am today – that with time and gentle hands to balance yourself, you will find yourself again.

About the Series: Through 40 weekly photos and accompanying essays, 'Still, Life' captures a deeply emotional and psychological journey of what it means to grieve, to heal, and to live on.

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Week 9 / Bleeding the Darkness

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This past week was a struggle for me both personally and creatively. My fiancé’s birthday was over the weekend, which means weeks of riding various emotional waves and traveling to new levels of grief I have not yet been to. It becomes hard for me to create photos when things feel very raw. For that, I often turn to painting or writing. But I had no choice but to push through, I won’t allow myself to skip a single week of this portrait project.

I’ve sat with this image actually for several weeks… mulling it over. Exploring what it means to me. Unsure even about sharing it, perhaps because I have needed to find my own meaning in it first. Often times I don’t have a plan when I go out and shoot, so it can take time before I begin to even know exactly what part of my myself and my grief I am diving into.

This image was certainly one of those, but it began to resonate with me this past week, with his birthday approaching. Those days and weeks leading up to a birthday, an anniversary, a holiday create a special kind of darkness when you have lost your partner, or anyone you loved very dearly. My mornings have been empty, hollow, filled with a vacant weight – not of nothing, but of even less than nothing, the loss of something. Someone. They are the days when you cannot want to get out of bed or eat or get to work or be awake or be asleep. Moments when you feel neither dead or alive, but hollow, and all-consumed by the darkness inside you as if it is bleeding right out of your skin. It is not a part I enjoy being in, nor a part I enjoy sharing particularly. But it IS.

This image is about seeing yourself still standing, even though you do not feel like you are there. Somehow, with all the pain, some part of you  – of all of us – keeps standing. That is what I see here… a part of me that is beaten and broken, the part that is in such pain that it’s bleeding out darkness from her pores. And she is caught in a moment of showing it unapologetically. It is about facing life and truth head on – not because we want to but because we HAVE to, each day.  It is about saying “This is me. This is what my darkness looks like. And I will not apologize for it or hide it away. I will be me, where I am, how I am, as I am.”

About the Series: Through 40 weekly photos and accompanying essays, 'Still, Life' captures a deeply emotional and psychological journey of what it means to grieve, to heal, and to live on.

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Week 8 / The Climb

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The climb out of darkness is not easy. It is not graceful or clean or smooth to the touch. It is filled with rocky slopes and sharp edges that pierce and scrape at us. It is a journey set in mud and blood. But a worthwhile journey… for just on the other side of the ledge is a lighter place. A place where hope surrounds.

This week was the hardest yet in this series for me. My fiancé’s birthday is in just five days, and it’s hit me hard all week long. It is a special kind of heartbreak to not be able to celebrate with a loved one on the day of their birth. So understandably… I’ve been completely unmotivated to go out and take photos. By Thursday, I finally had to force myself outside with my camera. Reluctantly, and with limited time due to the fading light, I made a rushed attempt to capture an image. It wasn’t feeling right. I wasn’t connected to what I was doing. I felt rushed and frustrated. The resulting images were good, but they weren’t good enough. And they weren’t telling a piece of the story I was connecting to.

I went out Friday morning for a second attempt, only to have the weather decide not to cooperate. Returning home unsuccessful, I pretty much fell into a pit of grief for the rest of the day. I cried all day long. I sat in my misery and in my grief, alone. And just when I didn’t think it was going to get any better… I got an email about an art presentation at a local art center. It featured eight artists talking about their work in a new exhibit, and one of the artists was someone who’s solo exhibit I saw last year and loved deeply. I decided to get myself all dressed up and go, if only to meet this artist I so admired. And with that decision I began to climb. By the time I got to the show, I was feeling pretty proud of myself for even getting out. I got to chat with a dozen or so other artists, something I don’t get to do nearly enough. And then the presentations began, and that is the moment I felt myself hoisted out of the dark. Seeing all the different styles of work and hearing the personal stories behind it made my heart sing in a way that nothing else quite does.

And then something even cooler happened. I began to imagine myself up there, speaking about my own work to a crowd of people. Which was both the most terrifying thing I can imagine and also the most thrilling. And in that moment, I realized just how much I have grown since he died. Two years ago, this thought would have been a far away dream, something no were near my reality. And now, I am almost shocked to see that it is so close I can almost taste it. The best part? He is every bit responsible for this happening… an overwhelmingly beautiful feeling – he is still right here, right in the middle of me achieving my goals and my dreams – for it is our story that I tell in my work.

I returned home with a fire in my belly – the kind that I needed in order to get the shot. I also came home with a new vision of what to capture this week… that hard, dirty, triumphant journey out of the pit. And this time, shooting it was effortless and exciting and deeply connected. The flow I’d needed all week was there finally. This is I think – an image that I really needed to see. It will remind me the next time I fall, that I will not be in darkness forever. That I am strong enough to climb out again. And that there will be things along the way that help to pull me out of it. Inspiring things. Funny things. Beautiful things. Things that take me by surprise and remind me of what is still amazing about life, even after death.

About the Series: Through 40 weekly photos and accompanying essays, 'Still, Life' captures a deeply emotional and psychological journey of what it means to grieve, to heal, and to live on.

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Week 7 / Hope

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Hope is an incredibly small thing when you are in a very broken place in your life. I don’t think it is something that looks bubbly and enormously bright and fills up the room – not when you are in total darkness. At the beginning of this journey through grief, for me, there was not even any room for hope. I was in total despair almost entirely for the first six months. But there were, in those early months, small glimpses. It did not come rumbling in with bold splendor, but instead appeared in small, subtle ways. Like the first time I was able to take my camera out and photograph the sunset and ENJOY it, about a month after he died. Or the first moments that real, honest, laughter happened. Or in the sharing of painful stories with another wounded soul and helping each other feel less alone. Or going art galleries and filling up my soul with inspiring and beautiful artwork that somehow made my incredibly broken soul sing for a few moments.

Hope isn’t always easy to see or find amidst the debris of a broken world. It can be easily overlooked when you are so tightly focused on the pain and on keeping things together. I have learned in my grieving that to find it, I must try to always keep a part of myself reserved – assigned to the job of looking only for hope wherever it can be found. The rest of me can wallow and cry and scream – all 98%… but that other 2% of me must always be looking for hope. No matter how small, no matter where. Find it.

Hope is the most powerful thing you can have in your hands when you are going through a deep loss. When you have fallen into the depths of grief and there feels like no way out will ever come… even the smallest proof of light can entirely reframe your world. Even if you cannot see the sun – even if you don’t want to open your eyes and try – to have some small piece of evidence that it indeed still exists somewhere creates a visual in your heart of a place you want to be. And that visual, if you hold it with you as often as possible, eventually, will get you to the sun.

About the Series: Through 40 weekly photos and accompanying essays, 'Still, Life' captures a deeply emotional and psychological journey of what it means to grieve, to heal, and to live on.

Week 6 / Desperation

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My father-in-law once described this whole experience of grief as feeling like falling into a pit over and over again. You exhaust yourself trying to climb out of it. You claw your way up muddy walls, sometimes reaching high enough to feel the sun on your face again for a moment. And then you lose your grip, and you feel yourself sliding back into the depths of your pain. Your fingers digging into the wet earth… hoping to find something to anchor to. But much of the time it is to no avail… and you fall and fall and fall. Until finally, you are once again at the bottom. Exhausted. Depleted. Empty-handed.

It is a special kind of desperation to be back in the bottom of your pain when you’ve lost someone incredibly dear to you. I was brought back there just a week ago, after attending my first bachelorette party since my fiancé died. Seeing everything I should have had and want so dearly to have… I lost my grip, and down I slid over mud and ash and pain. Stopping only when I reached the bottom of my pain, where there was nothing to do but surrender.

Almost 2 years after his death, I am not brought back there as often as I used to be. But I never forget the place where – for at least the first 6 months – I think I only managed to climb a few feet up the wall before falling (and I rarely had the strength to try and climb at all). When I am brought back there now, the reaction is still the same as the week he died. Every hair on my body and every last cell of me screams out in desperation. Even my hands themselves cry out – begging to be able to feel him again… pleading to know none of it is true. Aching to know the world I once knew, which looked nothing like this one. It wasn’t dirty. It wasn’t cold. It wasn’t dark. It wasn’t hard to look at or hard to feel. My world before was bright… something people liked to look at. Something I liked to look at. How complex living your life becomes when you find yourself in a world that no one wants to see, including you.

That is why I have so much appreciation for all of the people who have watched the most painful parts of my journey. Who have been unafraid to look at my world when it wasn’t beautiful to see. Hell some of them have even hurled themselves right down into the pit after me – entirely unafraid to feel the darkness with me. Those are the heroes in my story. They are the ones who make the loneliest place we will ever travel a little bit less alone. Today, if you are still here reading, that is most certainly you.

About the Series: Through 40 weekly photos and accompanying essays, 'Still, Life' captures a deeply emotional and psychological journey of what it means to grieve, to heal, and to live on.

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Week 5 / The Guardians

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Since a young age, I have felt protected and watched over by the ones in my life who have died – most notably my mother, who died when I was nine. At thirty one, I’ve now lost my mother, father, and my husband-to-be. I have also lost all of my grandparents, and several aunts and uncles… so I have accumulated quite the gathering of guardians on the other side.

I sometimes imagine them around me. I sometimes FEEL them around me. Especially my fiancé – as he is never shy to tell me he is near. They are tall and expansive – much bigger than they ever were in this life. When I stumbled upon this tree a few weeks ago, I knew instantly that it communicated exactly what I wanted to show of this inner world of mine.

Everywhere I go, everything in life that I do, this is where I stand on the inside. Surrounded by the power and protection of these souls. All the parts of me are there – the part that is small and sad and still broken… she is curled softly amidst their feet… looking up to them and asking for help. Asking for them to help her feel safe and to show her the way.

The part of me that is strong and tenacious and determined is there too. She stands tall but never alone – always with a hand braced against them. Should anything try to knock her down, she knows… she will not ever fall far, for she will always only fall into the limbs of great guardians. This is my reality. My way of being in the world is to operate internally from this place of spiritual strength. It saves me, heals me, guides me, and allows me to embrace life more fully each day.

About the Series: Through 40 weekly photos and accompanying essays, 'Still, Life' captures a deeply emotional and psychological journey of what it means to grieve, to heal, and to live on.

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Week 4 / The Gateway

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This week’s self portrait comes from a feeling that I think we all have when we lose someone we dearly love. I can’t count the times since my fiancé died that I have imagined a place like this… a gateway that could somehow reach across the realms. A place where I could pass into his world, even if just for a moment. I’m sure everyone envisions this sort of threshold in different ways. For me, it looks like this. Some of the journaling I’ve done to describe this epxierence reveals more of my personal views…

“I often imagine what it would be like if I stumbled on a sacred doorway to the other side and cautiously walked through the threshold… what would it be like? It would be a still, sacred place with an air of mystery around it. A space deeply connected to nature, so much so that even the trees have bowed in unison with its purpose. I wonder what it would look like as I stepped through to the other side? Would it look just like woods here, only filled with those I love who have passed on? Would I see him standing there, through the trees, and would we sit down together on a fallen log and share all the adventures we have both had since we last saw each other?

Or would it look like something entirely different – would I have no arms or legs at all? Would we be but two ambient forces flowing in a vast, open plain? Would there be no words, or any need for words? In this version, our spirits infuse more and more closely until we eventually become as one – the very original of how we began. Both of these visions give me hope. They help me see how beautiful it will be to share of my life on earth when I return to the ones I love on the other side.”

How do you imagine a gateway like this to be? Is it somewhere specific, does it look or feel a certain way to you? What do you imagine it to be like on the other side if you stepped through that portal? How does make you feel to imagine sharing with those who have passed on about your life here on earth since you last saw each other? What sort of stories will you have to share?

Personally, I think its so valuable to form our own individual stories of these aspects of death. It helps me to keep my sights on what’s important… allows me focus on the kind of stories I want to create in my life – so that I have a grand tale to tell him about this life of mine when we meet again.

It serves as a reminder that our journey with those who have died is not over. We are merely on a long trip apart. Our job while still on earth is to live a life so rich and full that we arrive back home overflowing with grand stories of adventure and bravery and love… especially love. Stories that we will sit down and tell to our loved ones – or that they will infuse into their own being – and their souls will shine to see how boldly we have met life… to see that no matter how much pain we endured, we never let it stand in the way of our greatness.

About the Series: Through 40 weekly photos and accompanying essays, 'Still, Life' captures a deeply emotional and psychological journey of what it means to grieve, to heal, and to live on.

VIEW THE FULL SERIES >