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efficiency vs multi-tasking (or, the decline of a photographer)

Apr 16th, 2010
by Jim Reverend.
2 comments

70X/365: something new
My Photography has suffered lately. I’m not complaining really. I’m just taking stock, stating facts, and reorganizing as I so often do to make room in life for, well, life.

“Pretend you live for a living.”

–Buddy Wakefield

Flickr’s Navel Gazing Society (otherwise known as Explore) is certainly no measure of greatness. Neither that of a photograph, nor that of the life of a photographer. But accepting it as an indicator I present the following:

I had 46 photos hit explore from 4/5/2005 until 11/23/2007.  That’s 18 per year.

My daughter was born in 12/2007.

I had 14 photos hit explore from 11/23/2207 until 12/13/2008. That’s 13 per year. A pretty steep drop from before, but still one a month. A baby does that to you and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

My wife left in 01/2009. After a few months of depression I was left refreshed, ready to take on the world, and with a young child under my care for roughly 75% of my previously “free” time.

I had 0 photos hit explore from 12/13/2008 until now. That’s 0 per year.

Again, I’m not complaining. I’m just trying to work it out in my head.

You see, the thing is, I’m very efficient, yet terrible at multi-tasking. Let me do one thing at a time and I’ll do it quickly and very well. Make me do two things at once and I’ll more than likely fail at both of them. Caring for a child takes at least some portion of my attention almost all of the time.

I don’t have time to take the photos I used to. It’s not that I don’t have time to hold a camera point it at things and release the shutter. Many would argue that a child makes a beautiful interesting photographic subject. And, despite always carrying far too many things, keeping a camera (or three) on me at all times is something I’m quite good at. I take plenty of photos. But photography is about more than just pressing a button. It’s about seeking out the light. It’s about waiting for the perfect moment. Looking for light and waiting for a photo are two things incredibly hard to do with a young child. They don’t like to sit still. And, doing so while watching a child is multi-tasking. So, I’m terrible at it.

I also don’t have time to edit. Editing photos is a two part process. First, we throw away the junk. Then, we make the good stuff look better. This takes time. Lots of it. Sitting in front of a computer isn’t something a young child enjoys, unless they enjoy it so much that they want to help, at which point, you’re not getting the job done at all. The good news is, I can do this when she’s asleep. The bad news is, that’s the only time I have to do lots of other things as well.

Finally, I don’t have time to promote. I used to spend a lot of time viewing photos, commenting on photos, discussing photos, and sharing photos. I have all but stopped doing any of these things.

So, now to the important part. How can I get back some of what I had without losing the wonderful things I have now? Because I can’t multi-task, I have to find ways to make what I do more efficient and to find ways to allow me to juggle tasks better.

Of course, just because you’re not me or not in this same situation doesn’t mean that these tips won’t make you more efficient too.

1) Take fewer photos

With film, releasing the shutter on your camera was a commitment to spending both time and money in order to actually see the image. Photographers acknowledged this and very few were willing to release the shutter until they were sure they had it right. When digital came along the mentality shifted: it’s just digital. Click away! Sort them out later!

In theory, if you’re looking for a certain shot taking as many as possible helps ensure you get the right one. In practice, if one of them is terrible, the rest probably will be too. Multiple shots approaching with different ideas and at multiple angles is one thing and certainly a good idea. But taking photographs just in case they might be good amounts to nothing but waste.

By spending more time looking and less time clicking, I might be more likely to anticipate a shot. And having fewer photos will drastically reduce the amount of time I spend in Phase 1 of editing, and somewhat reduce the time I spend in Phase 2.

2) Bring a Photo Friend

Bringing along a photographically inclined friend, particularly one with similar distractions (i.e. children, in my case) leaves us both with the ability to explore an idea more closely. As something strikes me as worthy of further examination, being able to trust my child in the other person’s hands as I explore an idea more fully will let me free my mind completely for the task. And my friend gets the same benefit. Additionally, as children often become the subjects of photographs, it allows one of us to photograph while the other helps adjust and collect the children.

3) Involve the Children

This is only a small break, but every little bit counts. But sending the children seeking for the elements you’re looking for in your photo, their minds focus a bit more and it makes them easier to monitor. Kids are great at looking for shadows, sticks, flowers, trees, letters, numbers, and things like this. Just don’t ask them to look for soft lighting on the side of a fire hydrant with minimal background distraction. Or, at least wait until they are 12 or so.

Involving them in the 1st phase of editing (and parts of the 2nd phase as well) is also a good idea. You’ll need software that allows you to rate photos quickly and with at least 3 or 4 different levels of rating (junk, keep for fun/memories, good, awesome). With this in place, children love to look at photos from an adventure they just took. Especially if there are photos of people and things they recognize. Making a habit out of unloading a photo card in the same way we unload our backpacks after an adventure will bring a child to anticipate doing so.

4) Involve Friends for Promotion

Nothing makes me want to photograph MORE than knowing that my work is enjoyed and appreciated. Promotion allows this to be fully realized. Friends can be a fantastic resource for promotion. Between Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Buzz, Blogs, and Email your friends can quickly and easily help get the word out about how wonderful a certain photos of yours is. Take the time to share with your friends and ask them to do the promotion for you.

And, if you are the friend of a photographer *cough, ahem, ME!*, share their work. Expose their art. Most social media outlets have icons you can drag to your browser toolbar to make sharing as simple as clicking a button. Here are some for Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, and Tumblr.

I hope this helps you with your photography. Do you have any other ideas to share that can help get better photos with a partially distracted mind?

I know, I’ll just hire it out!

Apr 6th, 2010
by Jim Reverend.
4 comments

I’m overwhelmed with the very notion of maintaining a household. After a nine hour day and two hours of commuting, I’ve got three hours left in each day to get dressed, get my daughter dressed, feed us both breakfast, feed us both dinner, play games, take baths, read stories, pick up after ourselves, have adventures, and get to bed. And that’s assuming we don’t rest — not even once — from wake up to bed time. Single people without children and dual income families with children can probably relate to this as well. After work, there simply isn’t that much time in the day.

As much as I enjoy cooking, love making extravagant meals and trying new techniques, the time it takes to do so is not worth what I’d have to give up to get it. So this means I either make very quick meals, eat raw foods, find people to share the cooking burden with, or hire the job out and eat at restaurants.

A month or two ago I finally broke down and paid someone to pull my weeds, trim my bushes, lay down landscapers cloth, and put down mulch. I was just tired of the letters from my HOA and they were claiming they were going to pay someone to do it and bill me and I was afraid of what they were going to cost. So now, my flower beds look beautiful.

But my yard still looks terrible. And my HOA has started sending notes about that. My grass is not really grass. It’s mostly weeds — low weeds mind you — with grass in between. As evidenced by the vacant lots in my neighborhood, it’s simply the nature of things around here. Without direct supervision and control, the weeds grow and the grass doesn’t.

So I’m supposed to go buy some “weed and feed” product, lock my kid inside the house because she certainly can’t be around that stuff, and spend a couple of days not enjoying her and, instead, following some intricate and arcane pattern of water then feed then water then rain dance. Then I can’t let my kid outside for at least two or three days as I wait for that stuff to go away. The alternative, as I did with the flowerbeds, is to hire the job out. For $50-70 a month, someone trained to do so will apply a steady stream of life threatening chemicals to my lawn to ensure that it grows green and “Natural”.

I get around to cleaning baseboards and fans every couple of months. Storage closets and such can go a whole year without being rearranged. I get to the toilets and bathroom counters once a week or so. The daily use surfaces like the kitchen counters and such get cleaned as soon as they are used in order to maintain a livable space. But, if you stick your hand in my couch cushions, to be honest, I have no idea what you’ll find. If you take out the white glove and start wiping surfaces, well, you may as well buy those things in bulk. I try to teach my daughter about housework by including her in it. But spending hours and hours toiling with a toothbrush at bathroom tile grout just doesn’t make any sense. Not when that means my kid is going to have to spend that time alone. For $400 a month, there are at least 10 different cleaning services that are more than willing to do the job for me.

Throw in the pest control service, the lawn guy, and some landscapers and, for $650 a month, I too could have a home kept up to societies standards. Assuming a salary of $40k a year, that means I only need to work 8 more hours every week to afford it. Well, aside from the eating thing. And an interior decorator. And a shopping assistant. And a wardrobe coordinator. And a crafts specialist.

So my options are to hire all of this stuff out and work my butt off to pay for it, force my child to play alone for a large portion of the time we have each day while I perform these tasks myself, or just not do them at all.

Currently I’m choosing some combination of the last two. I try to spend 30-60 minutes each day cleaning with my daughter’s help. This is, of course, above and beyond the basic pick up and cleaning and laundry and such. And I try to spend another 30-60 minutes cleaning on my own before she wakes up in the morning. This works well for all the small jobs. But for anything that needs more than 30-60 minutes of my time, it just doesn’t get done.

The right way!

So I’m trying to find new ways to do things that allow me to tackle the big jobs in small pieces.

I’m trying to find non-dangerous, child-friendly ways of, fertilizing the lawn, killing weeds, and cleaning hard water deposits out of the shower.

I try to decorate the house in ways that don’t require renovation or lengthy installation efforts. And when something does require some additional time, I try to find people to help.

I’m trying to find people to share meals with. Ideally on a semi-planned schedule. This saves the cost of restaurants and either lets someone else do the cooking or brings someone else around to keep my daughter from being alone as I do the cooking or some combination of the two.

And maybe some day I’ll make so much money that I’ll laugh at myself for ever wondering why people tried to do this stuff themselves.

Whether you’re a single person without kids, a single parent, a double income family, or a stay at home parent with an active lifestyle — if you’ve got any ideas, tips, secrets, or magic tricks about how you get things done, I’d love to hear them.

same thing it was the last time you asked

Mar 30th, 2010
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet

Child: What’s that?

You: An Apple.

Child: What’s that?

You: A Knife.

Child: What are you doing?

You: Cutting the apple with the knife.

*30 seconds goes by*

Child: What’s that?

You: AN APPLE!

If you’ve EVER been around any children under the age of 5 then you’ve, no doubt, witnessed or been a part of a conversation just like this one. Despite knowing exactly what you’re doing, what you’re doing it to, and why you’re doing it in the first place, they ask you about it. Maybe you’ve been around the block a few times and you’ve learned to roll with it. Or maybe it drives you further up the wall of insanity with each passing day. Either way, it makes one wonder, why do children do this?

The answer, much like the answer to most of the things kids under age 5 do, is simple: they are imitating you. As a species, human beings learn by watching and imitating. This is why kids like to put on yours shoes, eat what you’re eating, drink what you’re drinking, watch what you’re watching, do what you’re doing, and play with whatever thing you happen to have in your hands.

I know you are probably thinking, “but my kid has never seen me question someone else like that! Why would I ask someone a question I already know the answer to?!”. But consider, carefully, the fact that your child is a “someone else” too.

Imagine your kid is playing with blocks in the middle of the living room floor. It’s quiet, you’ve been doing some chore, you’ve just finished, and you want to interact with him. “What are you playing with?” Blocks. “What are you building?” A Tower. “What color is that block?” Green. “How many fingers do I have up?” Three. “What color is your shirt?” Purple. “What’s this a picture of?” A Caterpillar. “How do you say Hat in French?” Chapeau.

Ah ha! You knew the answer to every single one of those questions, didn’t you? Well, close enough. The reason why you asked them and whether or not you should is another topic altogether. But at least now you realize that it isn’t the genetic predisposition of our children to annoy us to death that causes them to ask such questions. They are asking because they’ve learned that this is what people do. And they’ve learned this because that’s how you act toward them.

and we shout at the top of our lungs

Aug 20th, 2009
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet

(I recently wrote these words to a friend going through some hard times in her marriage. I cried when I wrote them. I’m crying now rereading them. I figure they are worth sharing.)

Marriage is hard. Really hard. And children make it harder.

But, then again children are hard too.

I think anything worth keeping requires some work. The natural order of the universe is chaos. If we want to keep it, we have to KEEP it. KEEP is an ACTION word.

I’m not trying to tell you what to do. I’m not even offering advice in that arena because I honestly don’t know ANYTHING about ANYTHING.

But I do know this: Marriage is more than “I love you”s and sweet nothings and flowers and good times. It’s more than a handsome face and a shared paycheck. It’s more than monogamy. It’s a commitment. It’s a promise to yourself. It’s a promise to another person. It’s an agreement between two people to scream at the top of their lungs:

FUCK YOU WORLD! I don’t care what you throw at me, or how hard you make this life, or what comes my way good or bad, this person and I are sticking together, hand-in-hand, through thick and thin, to make sure that, in the end, we both make it out together.

And sometimes we have it easy. Sometimes the world is so nice to us and everything goes our way and there are no trials, no doubts, no difficulties. Then there are the rest of us.

There are plenty of reasons to end a marriage. And there are plenty of reasons to stay in one. I can certainly learn a thing or two about knowing when to call it quits, because I’m the kind of guy that never gives up on anything, and that’s not exactly the way to be. But there are two things that I am unwilling to give up on:

  1. my child(ren). Never. Ever. EVER.
  2. my promises (both to myself, and to other people).

Promises are meant to be kept until they are fulfilled or until all of those affected by the promise agree to dissolve it.

You will get through this. And, in the end you will only be stronger. Both the YOU-alone you. And the YOU-together you.

If it helps any, know that you are not at all alone. I’ve talked to lots and Lots and LOTS of Moms (and Dads) about this. Something I heard over and over again is that, at this point, right at about the one year mark of your first child, it gets rough. Lots of women (and sometimes men) think about leaving at this very moment. And all of those who didn’t have told me over and over again how glad they are that they didn’t.

I hope this doesn’t come across as preaching. Because that’s not how I mean it. I’m just trying to share what I’ve learned, in the hopes that it helps you, even just a little, get through this hard time no matter how it is that you do that.

sleep: too much, yet not enough

Aug 16th, 2009
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet

Doing Less and Sleeping More

From the outside, most people would say that I do A LOT. But from my perspective, it seems like I’m doing less and less with each passing day. The time I spend at home, especially on nights without C, is almost completely wasted. When C is here, I have a lot more motivation to actually do something — go the park, mop the floor, dance to Beatles songs, whatever. But since I didn’t take measurements regarding how much I was doing at any time in the past — which is a hard thing to measure anyway — I have no point of comparison to today.

I can say with certainty that I am sleeping more and missing my alarm more often. Last night C went to bed at 9:45. I fell asleep putting her down and woke up again at 10:45. Then I went to bed at 11:30 and couldn’t get to sleep — just tossed and turned for a while. So I got about 45 minutes of “me time”. I set my alarm for 6:00, trying to give myself enough sleep and yet get myself back to a reasonable amount of time. When the alarm rang at 6:00, I shut it off and fell back asleep until 6:30.

I’ve never needed 8 hours of sleep before now. Between 5 and 6 used to be plenty. But maybe I need 8 hours these days. Since Celeste gets up at 7:00 almost every day, I may need to just start going to bed at 10:00 so that I can still have an hour or so to myself in the mornings. Otherwise, I’d never get any writing or photo editing done.

Yesterday and Lack of Sleep

Yesterday was a pretty good day, once Celeste and I agreed not to be so cranky with one another.

She’d had a really screwed up sleep schedule the past few days and it was all coming out. Thursday night, her mom said that at 7:00 she she asked to go to bed. That’s an hour and a half earlier than she usually goes down over there. Then she didn’t wake up until 8:00. And she took a 1.5 hour nap that following day. That’s 14.5 hours of total sleep. With me, she usually gets about 12. So Friday night she went to bed around 10:00 and popped up at 6:30.

So she was cranky. Actually woke up demanding something and crying because she didn’t have it right that moment. This is not typical behavior for her.

I was cranky too, because I hadn’t gotten out of bed yet. Her crying woke me up, which means that I didn’t get any “me time”, or even a few minutes to wake up before having to figure out why she was so cranky.

Eventually, we ironed everything out. We stayed at the house for far too long. I was trying to get a few things done and she was making that difficult. I lost sight of what is important and put too much stress on things that could wait. Eventually, we left the house and things got much better.

We went for a nice walk by Lake Ray Roberts. C gathered fist-fills of pine needles (which she calls pine NOODLES) and walked with them, bundling as many of them in her arms as she could fit. When she ran out of room she started making a giant pile of them on a bench. She was still a little cranky, demanding snacks along the way and, eventually getting the point where she only wanted to be carried. It was hot and that made the walk difficult, but thankfully I had the foresight to wear a hip bag instead of a shoulder bag.

We stopped for a quick lunch along the way. She made a huge mess, but at least she was smiling and laughing. On the way home she fell asleep and took a 2 hour nap. When she woke up, she was my little angel again.

The Best Sleeping Schedule

I believe that if you are a parent who has a schedule to stick to because of work or something similar, the best way to get a child used to that schedule is to wake them up at the same time every day. With some exceptions (of course), this should be done no matter what time they went to bed, how many hours they napped, or how much they woke up in the night. It’s much easier on the child (and the parent) to wake them up in the morning than it is to force them to go to sleep at night. And they will find themselves tired earlier if their sleep the night before was cut short thereby eventually finding equalibrium.

If I didn’t have a schedule to keep (ha ha ha ha ha), I’d get them up at a time that was about 30 minutes or an hour past when they would probably wake up on their own. That way there’s some room for them to not have to be woken up.

But Not For Me

Getting her up at the same time every day, however, is not a good option for me because I only wake up with her half the time and the schedule she is on when she’s away from me doesn’t work for me.

See, her mom has to be at work at 8:30 which means she leaves her place around 8:15 every day. She gets C up at 7:45, puts clothes on her, puts her in the car, and lets her eat breakfast at school. She’s out the door in less than 30 minutes. I could do the same and would end up getting C at school 15-30 minutes later than she does with her mom since I have farther to drive, but Celeste and I really enjoy our morning times. We usually take a bath or a shower in the morning. We have breakfast together. We water the plant and feed that cats. It’s really nice. But, it takes me about an hour to get out of the house, if not longer.

I’d prefer to get her up at 6:00. That way we’d leave the house by 7:30, she’d be in school by 8:00 and I’d be to work by 8:30. But I’m not sure how well that would go over with her mom if she was getting up almost 2 hours before her mom wanted her up. But 7:45 is just too late. So, I am for between 7:00 and 7:30 each day and just try to go as fast as we can on school dats. Which means she doesn’t get to school until 9:00 or 9:30 and I don’t get to work until 9:30 or 10:00.

And there you have it. An entire post on sleep. And now it’s almost 7:30. Time to wake up the kiddo.

this and that

Jun 30th, 2009
by Jim Reverend.
4 comments

(this is just random crap. every paragraph is a new topic. skimming may suit you best, here)

I have Friday off and I have Celeste all day. Weekends are the best when I have her. This coming weekend is now 50% longer than an average weekend. It’s like a sweet little unexpected present.

I have awesome plans to see fireworks in Grapevine on Saturday night with a friend and her daughter. I can’t wait to see Celeste’s face when they go off. I can’t remember what we did last 4th of July, but I’m pretty sure we were on a plane, in an airport, or checking into a hotel room. So this is really her first experience with fireworks. I think she’s going to LOVE them. We’re going to bring some snacks and a couple of camp chairs, and turn the back of my SUV into a little bed. I doubt she’ll sleep with so much excitement but it’ll be a nice clean place to sit and/or roll around anyway.

Yesterday as I was putting Celeste to sleep, she leaned forward and gave me a great big kiss. Then she said “more dada”.

I’m planning a road trip for the end of July/first week of August. Probably 4 to 6 days. I’ve never seen the Texas Gulf Coast, but it’s hot and humid so I’m reluctant. Southern Utah sounds like fun, but the 20 hours of driving alone to get there doesn’t. Anyone want to come along? Either way, I could CouchSurf my way there. That would make it more enjoyable.

I understand that people have bad days every now and then. And I understand that bad days can lead to a snippy conversation or pointing anger and frustration in places where it isn’t deserved. It’s not great, but it happens. I’m guilty of this myself many times over. Being treated this way by other people makes me realize how difficult it must have been to deal with me when I got this way. However, when that misplaced anger turns into accusation, passive aggression, and guilt trips it becomes even worse. And that becomes a pattern, it becomes absolutely tiring.

I’m already pretty shy when it comes to girls and dating. It’s just not something I was ever very good at. Being a recently separated, single dad, who still isn’t technically divorced doesn’t really make it any easier. And between Celeste and work, I really have very little time left. So having romantic feelings toward anyone is a pretty crazy thing to even consider. But, it’s not exactly something I can stop. But even if it goes nowhere, it’s fun to think about… so why not?

Last night I went to change Celeste and whatever the circumstances were somehow she thought it meant I was putting her to bed, though it was quite a bit before her usual bedtime with me. At first I thought maybe she was just tired, so I continued with the bedtime ritual. But she wasn’t. She was, however, content to lay in bed and stare at the ceiling. It was amazing (and heart warming) to see her so willing to do what she thought I wanted even if it wasn’t exactly the most fun for her. After a little bit I asked her if she was going “night night” and she said “yes”. Then I asked her if she was sleepy and she said “no”. I asked her if she’d rather play or sleep and she said “play”. So I told her she could get up and we could read some books if she wanted. So she did. We read lots of books, had a nice snack, played with blocks, and then eventually went back to bed.

I have my last Chiropractor and Massage appointment today. My massuse says that my neck is so heaviily knotted that I’m what massage students would consider a good learning tool. Ha. All I know is that whatever she does hurts like hell when she’s doing it but leaves me with a VERY clear head about 30 minutes after she’s done that lasts about 24 hours or so. So I figure, if I could just see her every day, I’d be cured.

I have so many photographs to share. My camera never stops clicking. But, with so many I start to have a really hard time picking out which ones to share and the whole task becomes overwhelming. So, I think I’m just going to start just picking one photo a day at random, spending a few minutes spicing it up, and then publishing it. It’ll cause Arranging Light to border more on “experimental” than it has in the past, but that’s always been the point anyway.

I’m starting to have a hard time figuring out how to teach Celeste what’s okay and what isn’t. Yesterday we were playing outside and she decided to climb on someone elses front porch. I told her “no” and she ran and hid behind a chair there. I told her to come back and she wouldn’t budge. I know she was playing. “Chase” is one of her favorite games to play. I could see her playing face. And I can tell when her playing face turns into a “oh no I did something wrong” face. And eventually it did change. But, she still wasn’t moving. I eventually went up and got her. Maybe she’s just playing me but I don’t think she understood what was wrong, only that something was. I tried to explain to her that she just needs to do whatever I say when I say it, which she seems to understand, but it still didn’t fully click.

My approach of giving Celeste a “time out” of sorts in my lap when she isn’t listening well and talking to her one-on-one does work. Quite well, actually. I actually surprise myself sometimes. The problem is, it’s a teaching tool and not an action tool. Almost proving my point, we were back outside not 10 minutes later and I saw — I’m not kidding — three wasps fall out of the tree she was under and land on the grass next to her in a jumbled mass. Worried their might be more I said “Celeste, come here right now”. But she, once again, decided it was a game. I reached under the tree and snacthed her up which, ordinarily, she might have thought was fun. But coupled with my tone and the urgency in my face, it wasn’t fun any more. I don’t want to stop having fun with her, but at the same time I need to find a way to communicate the difference between “fun” and “serious”.

breaking horses

May 27th, 2009
by Jim Reverend.
3 comments

(While this is, specifically, about raising children, the same basic struggle can be applied to nearly every action I take and every thought that runs through my brain. Internal conflict abounds.)

There is a fine line between letting a child be a child and letting a child run wild. Or, put another way, there is a fine line between controlling a child and directing a child. Even at my daughter’s young age of 17 months I feel this. Every day.

On one hand, I want to clear everything dangerous and harmful from her path, even if it means personal sacrifice doing without things I enjoy. And then just let her run free. Let her explore and investigate everything with no restrictions. I want to answer questions, provide guidance, bring comfort and love, and never EVER have to use the word “No”.

On the other hand, I want my daughter to grow up to be a fully functioning (yet independently thinking) member of society. This means understanding that one cannot have everything they see. That, often, the answer is, indeed, “No”. And that, no matter who you are, where you live, or what you do, there is always someone you must answer to. Modern society provides a lot of amazing, wonderful, life enriching, life extending things. But, they are bittersweet when the come with such a cynical ceiling.

I don’t know anything about horses. So it won’t do any good to nit-pick at the finer points of this argument. But, to me, preparing a child for society almost feels like breaking a horse. You have this beautiful, wild, untouchable creature. Roaming free, living free, eating free, and existing without any of the benefits that modern society can provide it. Through the process of breaking the horse (by force or trust or whatever) you have a creature, much the same as the original, yet different. This new creature understands what it is allowed to do and what it isn’t. You have a creature that, regardless of why, chooses to obey those rules, at least for now. And that understanding — that seemingly small change — is actually present in every thought and choice that horse makes from that point forward.

It seems to be the same with humans. In the beginning you have nothing but a child: wild, free, somewhat understanding of it’s own bounds, but with no understanding of the bounds society places on it, and no understanding regarding why it should care. And, in the end, you have member of modern day society.

In order to get from the wild child to the upright citizen, there is a process. It is that very process that I struggle with; That very process that makes me sad and, at the same time, proud.

I, of course, take the most gentle approach possible with my daughter — and, if I were in the business of breaking horses, would do the same then, I believe. I seek trust over force time and time again. And I’ve had some great success. However, it doesn’t come without great frustration. I am left wondering if there might be a better way. And I am filled with worry that it might not even be necessary at all. And these things scare me. A lot.

I don’t have any answers. Only questions.