Show & Tell

I live in Nashville, a cool town with a laid back, creative vibe.  A place where I've seen dreams actually come true and ideas materialize into reality.  Just as quickly, I've seen those same dreams and ideas vaporize for many.  What makes the difference?  Faith, talent, timing, planetary alignment...a combination of the Universal Hunger that makes some folks seek stardom and others content just being themselves, whoever that might be.  I moved here 19 years ago with a few dreams of my own; scratching out a life in Music City, starting a family, and becoming part of the fabric of one of the most comfortable and talked-about cities in the Southeast. That said, I am constantly amazed at the juxtapositions in my life.  From the mundane to the fantastic, often in the space of a few hours.  I'll be scooping the cat box, and then find myself here for instance, at the front of a great show, with 65,000 screaming country fans behind me as Lady Antebellum and Sugarland take the stage in 100 degree heat at LP Field in Nashville TN for a CMA Music Festival concert.  Fortunate?  Yes.  Do I take this stuff for granted?  No.

 I've always loved taking photos, and developed a keener interest in it a few years ago, when my husband gave me a nice Canon 35 mm point & shoot for Christmas.  Remember those kitschy 70's instamatics we used to have?  Sleek rectangular gray and black bodies (large by today's standards), with the big red square button off to the side and the bulbous flash perched on the top?  We thought we were pretty cool slinging those around by the wrist band on the last day of junior high, taking bad pictures of our first loves, favorite teachers and locker graffiti.  It's nice to know now that my awkward green and yellow tinged photos with the bad lighting were a sign of the times.  My smart phone even has an app that can make my pictures look just as "appealing" as they used to, the "retro look".  We'll play with that later, in another post.

Back in high school, when we were figuring out ourselves, what we wanted out of life, who we loved and that Love Hurt, what we thought and felt about everything from the Iranian Hostage Situation to Van Halen's first album, my mother liked to refer to my group of friends as the Motley Crew.  I was new to the mix of kids on the block, long before there were any boy bands of a similar name.  I was kind of shy, changing from a girl to a FOX, according to local teen here-say, and moving from pop to rock.  I get a bittersweet pang in my stomach when I think of those sweet growing-up days and my Motley Crew peeps. I like to think of it as an echo back to a simpler time that really wasn't so simple. We're still friends to this day, we still talk, text, raise kids and now celebrate births, deaths, the good, prickly and painful.  This past 4th of July weekend, I couldn't be with my Motley Crew -  this was as close as I was going to get to MOTLEY CRUE.

This blog is a creative outlet for me, an escape if you will, my way of telling stories with pictures.  Through this, you'll see glimpses of the ordinary and extraordinary, the mundane and artistic, the weird and the thought-provoking.  There are days we need a break from our own lives - an opportunity to refuel, to see the world through a different lens.  So, when you see a post from me, you'll know I'm in time-out, trying to fuel up.  Step into my shoes and kick off  yours for a bit.  I hope you enjoy your time with defriezframe.