Family Tree....

I work with a yoga student who is a really successful businessman, by anyone's standard is the envy of the town. He's achieved the material and creative success that every 21 year old artist sitting on their couch can only dream of. As portrayed by the local papers, blogs, and magazines, he is living the great life. the dream.

But from his perspective, he wants to let go of it all. The control, the endless to do list, the management of his success. He wants a simple life full of relationships, it seems to me. But how to make that transition when we are trained from a very young age to define ourselves by what we do, by what pays the bills? Where is that balance?

It strikes me again and again as I do my jobs of yoga instructor and photographer, daughter, sister, friend and wife, that material success without richness of family (via blood or via friends) doesn't mean a whole lot. It may, in fact, be worse. Because I can only assume that the step at the top of the ladder of success is just above those steps that are marked with jealousy and competition.

Surviving adolescence, quarter-life crisis, mid-life crisis, and the hand that we were dealt, and to come out of the other side with a family still intact is an imperfect blessing. That support never completely satisfies what we need, perhaps, but man, what would we do without them?

my family-in-love (as my father in law has coined us...)