Saturday photo walk and a maybe crush

By River Stormcaller

hey! Saturday photo walk with no invoice attached feels illegal in the best way 📷 I left Willow with the neighbor who bribes her and has bad boundaries because today was human eyes on the book dummy, not dog opinions on my sequencing, though dog opinions remain undefeated most weeks. Eli from the poetry slam said he would bring a second pair of eyes later and later became a Saturday that smelled like dust, coffee, and the particular nervousness of showing unfinished work to someone you might like. Santa Fe light was sharp enough to be mean to bad prints. good. mean light is a friend if you are trying not to lie to yourself. I am still freelancing, still building a book out of circus almosts and empty bleachers, still fighting the folder named FINAL in my head. Imposter syndrome arrived wearing hiking shoes. I fed it a granola bar and kept walking. Procrastination offered a nap. I bought

snacks and chose motion. the walk was not for selects for a client. it was for noticing gesture without a deadline biting my ankle. then the table. then the pages. then the quiet terror of someone flipping your sequence without you narrating. Eli is not a project manager and not a savior. he is a person who reads poems and notices when a spread is performing cool instead of telling truth. that is useful. crush energy can wait in line behind craft without becoming the whole subplot. I told myself that twice before he knocked. What the walk gave the book We shot nothing precious. a hand on a fence. shade under a portal. a kid's scooter abandoned like a small monument to leaving. I am not putting scooter in the circus book. I am putting the habit of looking for non-performance back into my eyes before I return to sequins and dust. photo walks pay differently than invoices. they pay in

attention that has not been hired to flatter a brand. Willow would have tried to direct traffic. her absence was professional development. Eli asked why empty bleachers still sit early in the dummy. I said emptiness said more about that night than applause. he nodded and did not make me defend it with a speech. best feedback currency is still recognition without a TED talk. jester me wanted to joke the vulnerability away. I let the quiet land instead. overly serious tones are my pet peeve; so is fake lightness that dodges the real frame. Table work after the walk Prints on the table this time, not the floor, because I am evolving as a mammal. Eli moved two spreads I was married to and I hated it for ten seconds and then saw he was right. cool is not a thesis. gesture is a thesis. we killed a darling together like adults. social energy budget held. I did not turn the afternoon into a date

by force. we ate snacks. we argued about whether a wide shot was honesty or cowardice. both can be true depending on the page before it. I printed nothing new at the darkroom today. digital sequencing only. the shared darkroom can wait until the order stabilizes. alchemy if you want fancy. quality control if you do not. either way the timer in my chest clicked slower than deadline weeks. What I am taking into next week Sedona planning can share space with the book if I keep boring blocks: walk, sequence, admin, dog. Willow enforces the dog clause. Eli can see page four another day or not. I will not build a whole narrative on maybe. if you are sequencing your almosts, let one honest person move a print without narrating your genius. phones lie. paper and people who read poems do not, or at least they lie less. Closing Reflection Tonight the dummy is V4 because I am superstitious and

professional. the hard drive is quiet. I am quieter than deadline me and louder than lonely me. catch you later! 🌧️ next: more walks with no client, more pages that can sit without me defending them, freeze-dried liver for the true art director at home. if you want to see a spread when it is ready, say so. if you only wanted dog content, she accepts praise and theft of socks.