Josie Soho®'s blog/

Bye Bye Bush!

Today's post is a reprint from October of 2007. It's still relevent to the mission and intent of myself and this blog.

Tomorrow is the twentieth anniversary of my father's death by suicide. Every year I think it will be an easier idea to face. That's never been true. It's quite possible the idea will hit me twenty times harder tomorrow. I'll be busy with an open house at my studio. The open house would have made my parents proud. I'll hold onto that thought throughout the weekend.

I keep a personal challenge for myself. Each day I post in the morning and evening here on ipernity. I try to keep my work fresh, posting what's been shot from the day before if not from the actual day I am posting. When I write, it's about things that have actually happened to me and seem important enough for me to recount. It's a sort of mental filekeeping on the web. Even if no one reads it or responds it helps me to process thoughts and then let them go. I appreciate anyone who takes the time to read what I've written. I think it explains a lot about who I am and why I shoot and produce what I do for my work.

When I talk about my father's death from suicide or my mother's death from lung cancer it's personalized because these are things that have happened to me. I want the world to understand in a larger sense, cigarettes and guns kill people. I don't want other people to have these experiences in their lives. Suicide is too often swept under the rug. It's a very prevalent form of death that exists and is treated in hushed tones and seldom talked about. When it is mentioned, family secrets come pouring out. It's likely that someone you know has a connection in some way to someone who's killed themself. My personal belief is that if we could talk about suicide and lift the reverential barrier there just might be less of it.

In The Summertime

"They say I'm a dreamer...but I know I'm not the only one."

Please if you are in pain and thinking of hurting yourself- get help. Tell someone.

Day One

Day 2 •Ready For Anything