the courage to be me

Well, here we are at the end of our two weeks of anniversary posts. Being last is sometimes fun because you have the benefit of seeing what everyone else posted. But it can also be difficult because...well...c'mon...after the recent heartfelt blogging from all the Muses present and past what else is left to be said?

With that challenge in mind I thought it would be nice to create an image to help us remember this first anniversary celebration and all of our inspired words.  So, I went back through all of the Muses posts as well as all of your beautiful comments from the past eleven days (yes, I am crazy) and put them together in this word cloud, with the size of each word representing how often it was used.  If you want to pin it, blog it, tweet it or print it out and hang it somewhere for a little inspiration please do so. It was a lot of fun for me to create and I hope you all enjoy it!

OK, and now I actually do have something I want to add...

One of the things I love most about this community of creativity that we have built together is that every one of you challenges me in some way whether you realize it or not. To be better. To take risks. To try something new. And the biggest challenge of all...to be myself.

When I first joined the Muses I wasn't sure my urban-street-iphoneography-style was going to fit in. My initial thought was that I needed a better camera, and that I'd have to start taking different kinds of photos to measure up to the beautiful images I had been seeing from the other Muses. After the initial panic died down I realized that my photos were bringing another layer of diversity to the collaboration...which was in fact the whole idea. Tammy you are so wise, and I cannot thank you enough for opening my eyes and my heart, for bringing me in, and for helping me to see the real me.

I don't think it was a coincidence that I started a year of self-portraits project shortly after becoming a Muse. I thank each and every one of you for giving me the inspiration to share these little pieces of myself, and as Michel said so perfectly yesterday--the courage to hike up my skirt, be bold, and jump into the water! This image above is one of the first to pop out of my recently acquired Polaroid camera--the next challenge I have laid out for myself this year as we all continue to push the boundaries of our creativity comfort zones together.

I am excited to continue on this journey with all of you and to spend another year exploring by your side. Keep the inspiration coming in our flickr pools and I'll see you soon!

~christy {urban muser}