What I learned this year: an update on my health

Hello friend, what a moment in time we are living through! I hope you’re doing well and are enjoying yourself, considering.

Me, well, I’ve been through a lot. Last fall I received the shock of a lifetime when I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Navigating surgery, chemotherapy, and the health care system during a global pandemic has been the greatest challenge of my life.

When Covid entered our world I paused my business, but when cancer snuck in, I had to press the stop button. This was heart breaking because I was just hitting my stride as a portrait photographer and as a business owner.

As life slowed down, I settled into my new reality and took time to care for myself, which included a lot of resting, reading, writing, and reflecting.

Among the things I came to recognize is that beauty nourishes me, and how lucky I am to be able to appreciate it so deeply as well as create it myself. Right before lockdown last year I was on the cusp of launching a portrait campaign to celebrate the beauty of women.

This will still happen! In the meantime, I made a small diversion into making flower collages.

Flowers remind us that life is a bloom with possibility, and these came through me during a wild burst of creativity while I was healing. The New Jersey winter was cold and grey, and I needed some color and beauty to lift me up. An exploration of my hard drive revealed a treasure trove of flowers that I had photographed, and off I went.

These are certainly challenging times for each of us, and I hope you are able to find moments of joy and love in the midst of it all.

Thank you for reading, and be well!

xoxo
Maryanne