Jes Lee

Steps

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Taken with a Hasselblad 501c/m using Ilford film. Photographed at the site of an old farmhouse in Okinawa, Japan.

Today is my last official day of spring break. I know the week ahead will be busy, but I’m trying to not think about that yet.

Yesterday was the first day of spring here, and I found myself at the spring Mala at my yoga studio – 108 salutations: 27 sun salutes, 27 moon salutes, 27 hatha salutes, and one last round of 27 sun salutes. It is an amazing experience, that I’m not sure I can describe in words. Yoga has taught me so much already, and every time I am on my mat I feel like I learn a little something new, not just about the practice itself, but about myself, what is important to me, and what I need to let go of. The Mala was no exception, and together we let go of a lot of garbage and baggage we were carrying around, and greeted the spring.

2016 has been a much different year than I thought it would be…not good or bad, just very different (and already including one more tattoo than I thought it would). I set a goal of reading 52 books this year, one book a week, and so far I am on track to surpass that goal. John and I have amassed such a collection of books over our years together, and I am making a conscious effort to read through the ones I haven’t tried yet, and enjoying all of them. Currently I am sucked into the Sandman series by Neil Gaiman. I’m not sure why I haven’t finished this series sooner.

I spent a lot of time this spring break working on artwork for two shows this summer. My artwork is changing, the meanings are changing, and I find myself adding in layers of meaning that coordinate with current events and climate issues. This is not really new territory for me, but something I haven’t explored for about 10 years. We’ll see where this takes me. I have had inspirations coming from very different places lately, and I find myself craving the time to work, and no longer feeling bad about taking every minute I can get. This is just one more necessity for me.

Back to work.

12/26/14 – 12/27/14 Traveling to Okinawa!

This year, John and I decided to head out on an adventure. Our adventure began on Christmas Day. The next bunch of blog posts will be quite photo heavy…but I’m excited to share this little adventure of ours! If you don’t want to see photos of the beach, pottery villages, caves, and castle ruins, well, wait about a week and I’m sure I’ll have something else to blog about! For those of you sticking around, enjoy!

Somehow, Jeremy Messersmith knew that we would be heading out on this adventure, and wrote a travel song just for us!

 

We had a fun breakfast at the airport with some other traveling friends, saw Santa Clause directing airplanes…
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….took one 12 hour flight up above the clouds…

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….landed, took a taxi bus full of people out to the runway, walked up to our plane and up the stairs…I thought they only did this in the movies!

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Ok – enough with the crappy airport cell phone photos!

After another 2 1/2 hours we landed in Okinawa. It was pretty late on December 26th by the time we got there. It was awesome to see a familiar face at the airport, and have a home to stay at after all the traveling.

The next day we finally got to say hi to the rest of the family (Eric, Millie, Evie, and Clara) before we headed out on our first adventure.

I journaled quite a bit on this trip. Some of those pages I will include for you in my posts, so you can read more about the day, or just skip to more photos if you like!

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Being out by the sea wall was amazing. I love visiting the ocean…something I don’t get to do nearly often enough.

I brought my Hasselblad 501c/m with me on this trip, and a lot of film. Below is a little slide show of photos I took our first full day there. If you would rather just sort through them yourself, the gallery is here.