Susannah Conway

Susannah Conway is the author of the forthcoming book, This I Know: Notes on Unraveling the Heart (Globe Pequot Press/Skirt!, June 2012). A photographer, writer and e-course creator, her classes have been enjoyed by thousands of women around the world. Co-author of Instant Love: How to Make Magic and Memories with Polaroids (Chronicle Books, 2012), Susannah helps women reconnect to their true selves, using photography as the key to open the door.

You can read more about her shenanigans on her blog at SusannahConway.com and connect with her on Twitter @SusannahConway.

 

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Ode to a life I do not yet have

There are times when the ache overwhelms my ability
to read, to reason, to be still.
It runs from my womb into my heart, a central
Iine that will spark and snap like a cheap box of sparklers
if you cut me open.
There are times when I wonder if it’s this ache
that will carry me forward into the future,
a time filled with Sunday papers and country lanes
and cousins playing with tractors and string
in my sister’s garden.
That the ache exists for a reason,
not only to plague me in the quiet times, but to
keep my faith —
to help me believe.
There are times when I believe so hard,
my own private church of one, that believes,
oh how I believe,
that all is possible if I just
want it enough.
And then there are times like today, when it all
feels so far away and I swallow down
the ache with gulps of black coffee and let myself
fall into my work — my one safe place — while hoping
I have no dreams tonight.