drawing a blank @realityphotography - Tumblr Blog

6:00am / a new day

debora smail ©️ 05/29/2026

#through the window #facing southeast #workspace #houston #debora smail

dreams arrive in fragments first.

rock with life reaching for light.

debora smail ©️ 05/24/2026

#wabisabi #perfect imperfection #high desert

it’s the tiny rituals that hold a whole life together.

d.smail - 05/13/2026

#debora smail #iced coffee #morning #daily #ritual

today feels good.

d.smail - 05/12/2026

#noted #note to self #05122026

Fine red dust from the Lea County wind corridor lingers in the evening air, catching the low sun as it settles along the horizon. Backlit in silhouette, wind turbines rise quietly above the grasses, suspended in a haze of light and distance in southeastern New Mexico.

We sat at the Butterfield Trail Rest Area, mile marker 144 on US-180, along the caprock edge of the Permian Basin, between Seminole, Texas and Artesia, New Mexico, watching the day dissolve into color. Record of perception.

#New Mexico #debora smail #roadtrip with tracey #2009 #wind turbines #setting sun #record of perception

note to self…

dsmail / journal / 01.30.2026

#words to live by #note to self #journal #pen and ink

i am only here now.

d. smail - 11/15/2025

#watercolor #new #mexico #new mexico #act 3 #abstract #metamorphosis #becoming #the journey

Just sitting here, Saturday morning, editing some photos with the television tuned to a ’70s music channel for some mindless background… and this song came on.

I was editing a Persimmon Cobbler shot when this memory hit.

I was 13, maybe 14. Dad was driving us home from a junior high basketball game that he helped coach. It was dark and the oncoming headlights were blinding. The kind of night where you had to flash your brights to remind other drivers to dim theirs.

From the car’s 8-track player, Queen was blaring: “We Are the Champions.”

“Don’t you like this song? Sing along,” he said, hitting the track number to start it from the beginning.

I humored him and mumbled along. He hit the button again, starting it over. “Sing it, like you mean it,” he said, performing an exaggerated version of how I should sound.

I knew the drill. If I didn’t shift my energy/attitude to match his, the car might stop.

🎶 “We are the champions… no time for losers… ’cause we are the champions…”

I still hate the song.

d.smail 07/19/2025

#1977 #queen #memories #d.smail #Spotify