out of focus // summertime swing dancing.

|| fourth of august twenty-thirteen || 

i don't want to crave perfection. i'm tired of it. it forces a gap for discontentment to easily settle in. and life is so short to make it something that it's not, nor ever will be. simply put it isn't perfect neither is it about making it so. but perhaps it is about learning to cherish the messy moments, the smudges & ink stains, the spins & the stumbles, the blurs and & the out-of-focus. i want to accept the imperfections - fall head over heels for the little things that make this life extremely unique and incredibly, profoundly beautiful. perhaps, because He accepts my every imperfection and because every bit of it is a stitch in a story that is being quilted together day by day made with patchworks from every bit of life-altering adventure and at-home day and afternoon spent in the garden and day at the fair with friends and perhaps, swing dances in the country. 

i've been begging to go swing dancing for who knows how long, and my wish finally came true. my friends jessica, simone, denise, and my distant, long-lost cousin megan were the most eager to join the crowd when i had planted the idea at the first morning rehearsals last month. i don't know what i would do without those girls. there's a barn about 20 minutes out of town in this teeny tiny town where there's nothing but one main street, a post office, and one restaurant. every sunday night they host swing dances with east and west coast swing lessons and an hour of free dance at the end. good heavens, am i far from even being near to knowing what on earth i was doing! but somehow with swing dancing, it's about laughing it off and moving on and stumbling and learning {and of course, avoiding stepping on your partner's toes}. i didn't capture many photos, as always when i go out, but the ones i did are blurry and out of focus and imperfect to the usual crisp photographer's in-focus portfolios. but each of them are spilling with laughs and memories of spending a few hours under a string of lights in the country, listening to strands of music some of my partners listened to when they were my age. the blurs sew memories of people whirling and laughing and stumbling and learning and being in love with life. being alive. 
and i wouldn't have them any other way.  

xx from your fellow swing dancer 

postscript // have any of you been swing dancing? 
p.s.s. i know i said i was going on a haitus, but these were too good not to share immediately. ;P