Connection

This week, I took some lifestyle photos for a place that is near and dear to me - The Cooper School. I have taught art here. I have photographed these kids for years. I have designed collateral for them. I even sent my child to school here when he was younger. To say I understand the workings of this place would be an understatement.

It’s always fun when people trust you to tell their story - no matter what it is. But there is something truly special about a place that lets you back again and again to capture them both as they are and as you know them.

I don’t take for granted the families that come to me over and over again to tell their family story. Or the businesses that hire me year in and year out to photograph their staff, their day to day activities. It’s a special thing to be trusted like that.

And it’s a special thing to fall in love with your clients. In my opinion, it’s not the technical aspect of the job that tells the story. It’s not the fancy camera or the high end lenses or lighting. it’s not even assistants or other people on the job. It’s the connection.

And it’s that connection always makes for the best photos.

Reconnecting

Photo taken at a meal during a recent yoga retreat I photographed for Beth Cosi at The Horse Shoe Farm

It’s been a strange year.

It’s been a year of isolation and of disconnection. It’s been a year of reconnection with ourselves and our families. And sorting through the muck and mire of life until we what is most important to us. For me, that has meant a lot of things.

Let me start by saying that the general timing of my life paired with the aftermath of a major pandemic has thrown us straight into transition mode around here. Plans are being formed for the next chapter for all of us that will both carry us away and bring us closer together in some respects. Our lives are so far flung that we are reaching out - both unconsciously and very consciously. We are trying to find our way back to each other in all the ways. We are trying desperately to hang on to each other. To connect.

When life starts pulling at you (money, sickness, kids, life, general stuff), suddenly you can see the holes you managed to sloppily repair in the first place. They are always the first to give way. So, as life pulled at those strings (and as it always will), I quickly saw the holes coming back open like a sweater that easily unravels at the pull of a dangling piece of yarn.

But I have made these repairs so often now that I know how to jump into action. For me, it’s self care: Meditation, mindfulness and movement. That’s all I need to check in and make sure I am okay, regroup and put myself on track.

Or so I thought.

This past weekend, I went to a yoga retreat nestled in the crook of the North Carolina mountains under the safe and regal watch of Grandfather mountain. We had a healthy dose of all the things you need to get on track. Yoga. Meditation. Amazing food. But I felt like there was more there. More that I had missed. It was there that I realized what I have been missing this year - connection and conversation. I needed these things like I needed water. I needed to connect with humans and again - both physically and emotionally. I needed to walk on the earth in my bare feet and feel the grass against my back. I wanted see myself reflected back in other humans, in nature, in the mirror I have so desperately hated to gaze into all these years. I wanted to see both my good and my not-so-good parts.

This year has made me see that the thing I have been missing in this puzzle has been connection. It’s been a crucial piece missing for so many of us, too. Connecting to ourselves and others. Family. Friends. Strangers! I need connection like air. I need to connect over food and music and everything we have in common - not what we DON’T have in common (I’m looking at you politics!)

So each day now as I face a lot of transition and the turmoil of life, I try hard to remember to do the important stuff. I take care of me first. But I also pick up the phone and call someone. I hug my family. I walk in the grass and sit in the warm sunshine. I smile at people in the car next to me. I pet my dogs. And know that these repairs might just be a little more substantial this time.

Connections

I pressed the button here, so this is technically not my camera or edit. But these are my best people. Credit to my cousin, Rowan Williams of Parrot & Pineapple Photography, for her mad skills and camera.

A few weeks ago, we had these lovelies visiting us for a week from England. My whole family is from “the Motherland,” and we don’t get to see them nearly as much as I would like. When we do see them, days zip by as we navigate through meals and sightseeing, sitting poolside watching time slip away relentlessly, like water in a sieve.

Shortly after their visit, one of my best friends came to the area for a brief overnight trip. I felt the same tugging at my heart - that familiar feeling you get when you slip right back where your friendship last dropped off, despite years of children, missed birthdays, and too many miles between you both. It’s a familiarity of friendship that can’t be replaced or changed. I melted into the feeling once again, leaning into a sense of peace as they shuffled out to the car in my dark driveway, sleepy babies in tow…the fuzziness of familiarity, peace, and satisfaction of a delicious evening together.

It’s that feeling that I always want to bask in…the timeless love, forgiveness of sins, and unabashed acceptance of one another as we are in the moment we are in.

It’s not often we get these people in our lives that can hold space for us as we are. It’s not often we get people that love us unconditionally. I mean…let’s be real….I don’t even love myself that way. But when spend your time with people who make you feel wholly you – without hidden, selfish agendas or a mission to change you – isn’t it worth hanging on for dear life?

Perhaps the place I am in with life right now makes this even more poignant… change is on the horizon: my child is grown and ready to spread his wings, and loved ones have passed on…leaving connection to the people I have been closest to that much more desirable and necessary.

We are hard wired for connection. Ask any anthropologist or sociologist. It’s a requirement for living. Babies will actually die without physical connection, even when their other needs are met. So it’s no wonder that despite my best efforts to cut myself off, these deep connections I feel with family and friends who I have shared a history with are normal and expected…and, dare I say, necessary.

So now, I look forward to what the next phase holds. Maybe it’s a re-connection phase. Or maybe it’s a freedom phase. I just know it will be a phase of deep, meaningful relationships wherever I turn.

And thank goodness for direct flights.