“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” Professor Albus Percival Sulfuric Brian Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling

How odd it is to examine a life that isn’t entirely real but is solely your own, a life both lived and imagined, a life that’s accepted (though not without question) by those close to you. I began to do this long before I considered the photos. After several moves, I had assembled a mass of old and new photos; snapshots I’d taken throughout the years, and those left behind by parents and grandparents. Some photos were recognizable, some weren’t. Few were flawless, many were awkward or utterly inept. None were easily disposed of.
It wasn’t the photos that convinced me to create a life that was partly real and wholly mine in a way that skims reality. I’ve always lived a life that’s my own invention, a mysterious, mythological journey with scraps of humor strewn along the path. I’m a passenger in the photo above. Sometimes I wonder if there’s a driver, and sometimes I’m the driver. Though my feet are up in this photo, they aren’t always. I skip. I jump. I dance. I fly. I stumble, spill wine on my shoes, collide with a fragile spray of grace. I invite you to come along…”Life, Death and Beyond Smiggle’s Bottom” August 2016.