Tenacity

The wind was blowing harder than I think it's ever blown around here. Harder, at least, than it's blown in the last eight years. You could hear it howling, and I even think you could feel the house shift and move. Considering that I live in a brick home, that's no small feat.

I stepped onto the back porch to see just how powerful the wind was and immediately went back in the house. Not because the wind forced me back in. Because I needed my camera.

On a branch completely bare of all leaves, there was one tenacious leaf that still clung. It whipped and flipped about, was blown to the limit of its stem.

I admired it. It didn't quit, didn't give up. It's possibilities of success were slim. It was only a matter of time before the wind won and snapped the leaf's fragile stem. But it continued to cling to that branch.

I continue to cling to dreams from my childhood. Sometimes I give those dreams a more realistic spin, but sometimes I have an all-out fantasy of achieving the childhood goal of becoming Nancy Drew or being a fashion designer in Paris. The latter is just fantasies, an attempt to daydream my way into a detox of a difficult day.

But there are other dreams that are feasible and attainable. I want to write. I've published and I want to publish more. I want to take pictures that move people.

I want to have the tenacity to actively pursue my dreams.