Spongebob Squarepants

And vanilla ice cream!

One of my biggest fears in life is to be boring. I’m ashamed to admit it, but it’s true.

Then I think about the significance of vanilla ice cream — a simple flavor, yet desperately important. I don’t think anyone really wants to be considered “vanilla”, but let’s talk about that.

When my Dad was in hospice, he only had an appetite for vanilla ice cream. Nurses would serve him his meal trays, and no matter if it was breakfast, lunch or dinner, the vanilla ice cream was always the only thing he ate. It was a miracle to see him consume anything at all. So alas, my personal admiration for vanilla ice cream. It is truly such a staple, a buttress, a sweet and reliable treat.

When I was six or seven, I remember going to Laura Jean’s birthday party. It was at our local small town pizzeria (arcade included, of course). This was the spot for birthday parties.

My sixth or seventh birthday party!

We were seated at our tables and given a coloring competition — whoever could color in SpongeBob the best was the winner. I was given my SpongeBob outline and colored him in the best I could from memory. Yellow sponge, brown shorts, red tie, blue eyes. This was easy!

Time was up and we all submitted our drawings. The seventeen year old instructor evaluated our hard work and who was the winner? Laura Jean, of course. But it wasn’t because it was her birthday.

Laura Jean had colored in SpongeBob in an array of colors — a rainbow sponge I hadn’t ever imagined myself. She did not win for her accuracy, but rather, her innovation — her willingness to “think outside the box” — or sponge, I should say. I was dumbfounded.

This is a story I’ve carried throughout my life and in certain times need to remind myself. And now, as a person running her own photography business, I am constantly thinking about the rainbow SpongeBob. He was different, out of the ordinary, trying not to be like everyone else.

I think the only way I can be successful (and I’m talking about personal success) is to stay in my own lane. I want to be free and in tune with my intuition, rather than function within the confines of perfection.

There is a fine line in my work between vanilla ice cream and SpongeBob. Of course, my photographs need to be reliable, sweet, soft… But my overreaching goal is to forever be like a Rainbow SpongeBob — unique and true to your senses.