Cleaning the Viewfinder

My website for a time had been with a company

that offers the ability to add and change things at will

without waiting for my webmaster to do it.

Today, in addition to changing ALL the fonts (!),

I had been tweaking the info on my contact form. 

The item in question was in scheduling a screening call, to see if we clicked,

and to make an appointment to meet, so over a calmer, more relaxed time,

I could see them and strategize how to help.  

Just contemplating the sentence that I could not discuss price before I understood the parameters of the project flooded my nervous system

with past memories of all the people that had done JUST THAT.

This suddenly seemed like a perfect metaphor

for the way I felt people were seeing me and my work,

and filled me with such a sudden, heated surge of memory,

I had to step away from the computer until I cooled down.

But instead of giving in to the part of me

that wanted to let them all ‘talk to the finger,’

I let myself finally feel all these emotions all the way through.

The common thread that ran through all of these incidents

was a lack of boundaries and ‘backbone’,

letting my easy-going nature be misinterpreted as weakness.

I am in a profession I love, and I want to continue to be in a profession I love.

So it is my responsibility to keep searching out the gaps in my protocols and policies,

and strengthen them so that hidden feeling does not steal joy

and cause me to become cynical or embittered.

Though these things have indeed happened, 

each step today becomes the next one tomorrow.  

I saw that my part in this is slower & more connected communication. 

To not be rushed or in a hurry to close the deal.

To know that not everyone who wants my work is my ideal client. 

To know my ‘deal-breakers’ and be able to stick to them.  To listen to my gut.

And to keep a regular practice of ‘dusting the cobwebs’ that build up in the corners

so I am able to be ready, whatever happens,

with clean sensors in my cameras – and in me.

Dorothy Perry is a Chicago portrait photographer.

 Contact her here.