Life has a way of enticing us to deviate from our well formulated plans… like a mysterious little path in a sun fragranced forest; it beckons our intrigue and causes us to wander afar from the road of regulated complacency. The opportunity to work with Free to Be Kids was one such path which, I believe with absolute certainty, will change my life forever.
Whenever we aspire to something beyond the strength and capacity of ourselves we are assailed with the prevailing awareness of raw and tender emotion. Compassion, inadequacy, hope, despair, passion, fear – all the delicate emotions of life juxtaposed into a beautiful and despairing reality. And fragilely encased in the midst of these seemingly conflicting feelings is a small voice whispering ‘what have I to give?’
We ask this question as though we are hoping for the world to present us with the answer… we call out to the still of night for providence and riches and ask that in its grace and infinite knowledge, it would align for us the stars and heavenly clusters to show us the way in which we must go. Yet it is not to the stars that we must look, it is not even to the dark of night that we should seek answers from in our quest – we must cast our eyes from the exalted heights of outward thinking and in deep retrospection look to the depths of our inward self. What have we to give… what do we have right here, right now lying dormant for its awaited hour?
My dormant gift for this hour is photography, writing and creativity… the artistic translation of life. In January of next year I will be traveling to The Philippines, India, Uganda and Cambodia taking photos and transposing the stories of many young children whose lives have been condemned to the evils of prostitution. In one month I shall collect photographs and heart-rending stories of hundreds of girls, families and villages whose lives have forever been affected by the suppression and exploitation of women.
Like all little paths – the further we travel upon their narrowed route, the more obscured and shadowed is the way from whence we came. The familiar landmarks become less distinguished, the voices and chatterings are diluted into faint murmurings and the glowing lampposts which once guided our route grow fainter in our absence… until one day when we are surprised by silence and look back – and in that moment realise that we can never return.
