Leaving the Lake

There’s something strange about leaving a place that held such a specific version of you. For the last three and a half years, the lake was woven into the background of my everyday life. It watched me become a mother. It watched me walk endless stroller laps trying to soothe my babies, It watched me start over in my own body twice as i navigated postpartum with my 2 babies. process big feelings, survive sleepless nights, and slowly become someone new. It sat quietly beside seasons of growth I didn’t even realize were happening at the time.

That lake held so many small versions of me.

• The recent graduate trying to figure out where creativity fit into motherhood.

• The new mom learning how deeply beautiful and exhausting love could be.

• The woman trying to balance ambition with presence, creativity with responsibility, dreams with ordinary life.

  
  

And now, somehow, we’re here!! Unpacking boxes beneath palm trees and saguaros instead of cottonwood trees and water.

The desert feels wildly different from the life we left behind. At first, I worried it would feel empty to me. Dry. Quiet in the wrong ways. But the longer I’ve been here, the more I’ve realized the desert isn’t empty at all. It just asks you to slow down long enough to notice it.

The soft colors hidden in the mountains at sunset.The way the light stretches across the earth in the evenings.Tiny wildflowers pushing through impossible places. Heat rising off the pavement. The stillness.

It’s a different kind of beauty than the lake, but beauty nonetheless.

And maybe that’s what this season is teaching me.

That growth often looks like grieving and excitement existing side by side.

Because I am excited. Deeply excited.

Excited to build something here. Excited to expand our family. Excited to explore new landscapes and get into new rhythms. Excited to create again. It's been tugging at me for a long while.

The last few months have been full in every sense of the word. Between moving, parenting, unpacking, adjusting, and simply surviving the transition, there hasn’t been much space left for creating. But in the last month, I’ve photographed 4 sessions here in the desert, and every single one reminded me that photography feels natural to me. .

I missed this.

I missed chasing light. I missed observing people closely. I missed the quiet satisfaction of editing images late at night. I missed creating something that allows people to hold onto a fleeting season of life.

Being behind the camera again has felt like reconnecting with a part of myself that had been waiting patiently beneath all the chaos.

And maybe that’s part of why this move feels so emotional.

Because I’m not just leaving a lake.

I’m saying goodbye to a very specific chapter of myself.

The young mother. The recent graduate. The version of me that grew in maturity beside the water.

But I’m also making room for whoever comes next.

Someone more patient. Someone wiser. Someone more rooted in herself. Someone learning how to bloom in an entirely different landscape.

The lake taught me quiet resilience and i'm hoping the desert will help me. The lake taught me quiet resilience, and I’m hoping the desert will teach me how to bloom when the light feels too harsh to do so.