I cannot sleep and my head is spinning; not in the Linda Blair fashion, but in my mind. This evening as I was going to bed I thought I would pop onto this blog project and see how things went for the day. I was utterly floored by a comment by Alison Elizabeth Lister left on yesterday’s post The Taxman Cometh:

“Hey Terry,
All this talk of following your dreams … I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis almost 3 years ago, when my kids were 4 and 18 months. My hands stopped working properly and I had numbness and tingling everywhere below my neck. I had already quit my job to by a stay-at-home mom, so no disability insurance. I am on medication now and my hands are better but I experience a lot of fatigue. I don’t think it would be a good idea to have a full time job outside the home. So, I am pursuing my dream of being a writer and hoping that it provides enough income eventually to supplement my husband’s enough that I don’t need to get another job. So, having MS is not the greatest thing, but it definitely made me brave enough to pursue something I might have been to timid to pursue otherwise.
Cheers,
Alison Elizabeth Lister”

It took my breath away and brought a tear to my eye when I read this comment. I just stood there stunned for a few moments. I am blown away by how strong of a bond I am beginning to form with others out there connecting to this project. I have been talking to Alison for the past couple of days. She is a writer who was interested in using one of my images as cover art for a book project she is currently working on. The notion really intrigued me so I was open to the possibility. I visited her website and read a sampling of her stories. One in particular called “Exposure” about a male photographer having a romantic encounter with a young male model he was working with in his studio. I directed Alison toward my online portfolio on Red Bubble so she could see if there were any images that might work for her. I also suggested if she found a particular model there she liked that perhaps I could create something that was more specific to her story. She has been looking at my images for the past couple of days now; reading and commenting on the images and these blog posts on Facebook. I feel that I have begun to develop a sense of whom she is.

I suddenly realized that my simple ramblings are having an impact on others connecting to my stories. For Alison to be so bold and honest about her own situation and put herself out here like this. I hear lots of comments from many people and their reactions to what this project means to them. Unfortunately, due to the nature of this type of format, those comments tend to get lost because they are posted in past blogs. Since many people follow the project day to day, they do not see all the amazing ways people relate to it because they don’t tend to go back to previous posts. I have been getting a sense that this project has grown beyond me. I am humbled and honored that so many relate to me so deeply. I strongly encourage people to comment into the blog so it becomes part of the significance of what is happening here. I am still not sure where it is all headed or what it will become, but I am beginning to feel its impact on so many others.