L. O. V. E

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”  ― Lao Tzu

source:https://tenor.com

This year I choose to celebrate love...

The love unforgettable, love undeniable, love unconditional, the selfless love, love un-regrettable, tough love, the forever love.

I celebrate the love unconditional..

that enabled me to  run back to it whenever life hit me hard,

the love that put food on my table and a place called home,
the tough love that made me want to break away.

I celebrate love unforgettable,

that kept me up with late-night phone calls and pink cheeks,
the love that brought family and friend together for special moments,
the love that held me together when everything seemed to fall apart,

I celebrate the love undeniable...
the  love that put fire in my eyes and passion in my heart,
the love that brought with it great ideas and renewed hope,
the love that died before its time,
the love that left me curled up in tears with great lessons.

I celebrate selfless love...

that love that enabled me to pour myself into another soul,
because that is what love does,
the love that enabled me to look myself in the mirror and accept who i am.

I celebrate forever love...

the ever constant, never changing love
that has been before the beginning of time..

LOVE: IN BLACK & WHITE_#GODHEALDRU

“The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our separate ways, I to die, and you to live. Which of these two is better only God knows.” 
― Socrates

courtesy: Facebook

There is a lot of irony with birth and death and even greater irony when it all happens at once.
This week the hearts of Kenyans have been gripped by the emotional story of Dru.
This young lady went in for a CS delivery and after a 48-hour coma, she rested.
I know this story very well because I lost a dear friend Nana Cherop in similar circumstances 2 years ago. Same script but different lead.
With all the condolence messages flowing I imagined Dru was just like Nana. Loving, friendly, warm, hospitable, expectant, always excited, a mother to many, a caregiver like no other to those who knew her.

I was scrolling through posts and it caught my eye her husband's declarations of love and plans laid out. The realisation came to me that this was a true example of true love.
One post in particular just hit home.
I thought to myself, I want something just like this! No matter how short or long a legacy.
It had all the ingredients of true love: patience, peace, joy, friendship, kindness, mutual respect, hope for a great future, God, love, fun. purity etc

All these made me realise that what I was about to get into was not love?! It was lust disguised as love without mutual respect or purity or God or friendship or patience. It was tainted and definitely not worth building a legacy on.

Now I know...
that death comes in different ways,
like when you waste time looking for the right thing
in all the wrong places. OR
when you worry and allow shame and doubt to take the lead, OR
when you are wounded/hurt and won't admit it to yourself, OR
when you are trying hard to replace God with other things, OR
when you waste time dwelling on the past and on things you cannot change... OR
when you lose a dear one or an opportunity, OR
when that second chance eludes you, OR
when you are disappointed or heartbroken, OR
when you always see your world through other people's eyes
YOU DIE. PART OF YOU DIES.
And you grieve for the part of you that is left,
Yet you are never quite the same again.
Let's live...

#GODHEALDRU'sFAMILY...

UNLOVING ME

“You can be the most beautiful person in the world and everybody sees light and rainbows when they look at you, but if you yourself don't know it, all of that doesn't even matter. ― C. JoyBell C.

LOVE- A very difinitive word. i do not even know if there is a true definition for this. Its four letters put together that have so much power, its an emotion you cannot describe enough with any word or action.

Google Images

We love, We are loved. But how do you unlove yourself?
An article i read recently from my favorite webpage thoughtcatalog.com inspired this post:

UNLOVING ME..

I will unlove me,
I will put away all the regret and past hurts,
And remember that you know my future better
I know my own past,

I will Put away those lonely thoughts and hurtful dreams,
And remember that my name is inscribed on the palm of your hand.
I am never alone because you promised never to leave me,

I will forgive those who hurt me and created monsters out of me,
Because your were always there with me, Standing by me,
even when i put them before you, loving me still..

I will stop obsessing over my social media pages,
And comparing my life to everybody else's,
Because your have a great plan for my life,
That gives me hope and a good future

I will put down my phone often,
And pick up your word,
Because your word is always true,
Everything you say you mean,

I will not let another human have power over me,
Because are you are my source,
And they are just resources from you,

I will unlove my self and love you more,
Because you can't unlove me.

HAPPY NEW MONTH

Source: Google Images

Happy New Year! Happy New Month!
It's definitely been a while.
Change has happened. For starters i took down my locs. I am wholly a naturalista. :)
I plan to grow out my natural hair as long as my locs were. Everybody is raving about my new look.
Half the time i still do not know what to do with my hair. I get caught up all the time.

Hello February!
While februrary is generally considered the month of LOVE,
It's my month of FAITH.
I choose to believe,
Only good and positive stuff allowed,
I will believe the unbelievable,
I will dream the unthinkable,
Speak it into the atmosphere,
And let my words do the working.

LOOKING AT LOVE

In this day and age where love has grown and transformed into many spheres, we celebrate LOVE.
The one ever constant verb we do anything to keep.
Today i present my favorite LOVE quotes a series is pictures "LOOKING AT LOVE" (... re-blogged from  Newyorker)

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close. 

Pablo Neruda

Molly Landreth, “Meg and Renee, Seattle, WA” (2007)

This image is from my series “Embodiment: A Portrait of Queer Life in America,” which I photographed primarily between 2004 and 2010. Each image in this body of work is like a love letter to and about my subjects, as well as the larger queer community that we work together to represent. I think that the caption, written by the friends in this image, proves that it is possible to photograph love, in it’s many complex and subtle forms. “Looking back at this photograph, I feel a sense of calm happiness remembering a night driving around aimlessly in the world we’d created for ourselves, far from home, in the quiet darkness of a lakeside parking lot sitting next to someone you love and have grown up with, chilly and nestled together with our eyes shut, trying to stay still while flashes burst all around. While living in the Midwest, we were often the only community we had. Now, grown up, we continue to be close friends and to learn from each other. At the time this was taken, it just seemed like a fun weeknight project, now in a frame on a wall it reminds us both of that moment in time and how amazing it is to know someone whose shoulder you can rest your life upon.”

Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky. 

Rainer Maria Rilke

Ute Klein, from the series “Resonanzgeflechte—leibhafter Raum” (2009)

Ten years ago, I fell in love with my partner. But, soon after we started our relationship, our lives pulled us in different directions, and we ended up in a long-distance relationship. It was heartbreaking to be in love but be apart, and it made me question the general idea of relationship. Why do people decide to be together? What does it mean when they are actually apart? What do we expect from our relationships? What roles do they play in our lives? With this in mind, I started exploring the very general aspects of love and partnership. I wanted to depict relationships in their complex and multilayered facets, transforming them into sculptural-looking figures, in strange and ambiguous poses, with colorful surfaces. I do believe that it’s possible to find ways to photograph love, as I believe that a relationship can survive hard times. Sometimes, it just needs to be looked at differently to be better understood.

And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.  

Paul McCartney

Lauren Fleishman, “Yevgeniy and Lyubov Kissin, Brooklyn, New York” (2009)

This is an image from my series “Love Ever After,” which documents the love stories of couples that have been together more than five decades. I met the Kissins at a dance for seniors, and I immediately noticed Lyubov’s beautiful hair. Each time I tried to photograph another couple, she would pull me away, bringing the camera back to herself. She loved being photographed. Do I think it is possible to photograph love? Absolutely, I’m a romantic!

Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.  

James Baldwin

Sage Sohier, “Stephanie and Monica, Boston, MA” (1987)

This picture is from my series “At Home with Themselves: Same-Sex Couples in 1980’s America.” From 1986 to 1988, I photographed over a hundred gay and lesbian couples and conducted extensive interviews with them. I feel privileged to have been let in on this private, intimate moment. I don’t feel like a voyeur but, rather, like I’m being included in this special realm. It’s moving, and it makes me reflect on my own experience of intimacy. “Love” is a tough one to photograph. I certainly think it’s possible to photograph intimacy, and to make pictures that give a visceral and tender sense of touch.

We must get beyond passions, like a great work of art. In such miraculous harmony. We should learn to love each other so much to live outside of time… detached.
Federico Fellini

Sabine Mirlesse, “L & V” (2012) from the series “Preventricular Arrythmia”

I started this series after a breakup, in 2010. At the time, I was so overwhelmed with the subject of happy and unhappy couples, and what that meant, that I decided to just give in to it. I began shooting in New York, and then Paris, often using the too-small apartments young couples find themselves sharing as a player in the scenario. The series developed from there, and it took the title of the diagnosis a cardiologist gave me for a heart condition, very common among young women in their twenties, in which you have extra heartbeats. As for what I’ve learned: in retrospect, whether or not a couple is still together perhaps matters less than the fact that at the time the picture was taken, there was love in the room.

HAPPY LOVERS  DAY!!