Day 17: Bondage & Victory

In case you missed yesterday's post, a majority of this week will feature my walk around my neighborhood and pieces of "feminine" concepts I found around me. And can I just say, I have NO idea why my out of focus shots looked so... creamy? I don't know how to explain it, but when I downloaded the pictures from my camera I thought "woah! this looks like... a painting?" Not so much the objects, but the still life did. I don't usually get that effect from my lens (at least I don't think), and I'm wondering if it had to do with the thick humidity of yesterday.

Weird, huh?

SO, again, I didn't do any special effects to these images... the blur just became this fluid-ness of color. I don't mind, I'm just curious if it's humidity vs. camera lens.



When I saw this knot, pink nonetheless, it reminded me both of struggle and victory. Struggle -- in the representation of a knot, of bondage. I won't make general presumptions, but give my personal opinion/experience. I'm a woman who loves to explore, to discover the world, and I once thought I would be traveling with a team of journalists to uncover stories of injustice around the world. However, I knew that I wanted to have a family and to be married. This topic is sensitive because different women have different ideas/beliefs about this. I knew that if I wanted to have children and to be married, I couldn't live a life that would put me in danger and could potentially leave a widower behind, or much worse -- children without a mother.

For example -- the opportunity to work on the Mexican border for another documentary (not the one I worked on before) presented itself to me, but it involved following the train chasers (i.e. gangs, violence, danger for women, illegal behavior, etc.). The crazy thing is that I would honestly consider doing this! And while "bondage" might be a really strong word, I kind of am in bondage to individuals other than myself. Is this a feminine trait? I think of it that way because I think of mothers. I think it's almost instinct for mothers to give themselves up immediately when they have a child. Granted, I think there should be a balance -- but it's more instinctive(?) to accept "it's not just about me."

The victory? Well... I couldn't help but see the similarities of that pink knot and the breast cancer pink ribbon. Man, that is powerful. My Godmother was diagnosed with cancer a few months ago and I couldn't think of a stronger woman. When I went to visit her during Christmas, the first thing she did was lift up her shirt to show me the scar on her torso. Her battle scar. Cancer -- survivors and fighters -- bondage to this disease and in some cases... victory of it.

I don't know why this was on this person's yard. But it was and it spoke to me.

"Bigamy is when you're married to one man too many. Monogamy is the same thing." -Erica Jong, feminist fatale

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To participate in my 100 day challenge, submit your photo representing your interpretation of "feminine" and about a paragraph describing your interpretation to alejandra@imaginaledesign.com -- Read more about it here.