the time in between taking a photo and seeing a photo holds many things. sometimes that space is just a couple days, other times a whole season has come and gone and a layer of me shed, flushed down the drain along with the film's chemicals. the latter is the case here. I took these photos in may, it's now nearly september. I knew a different person would return from that time in the woods, I just wasn't quite sure how she would get here.
I'm crying as I write this post. it feels like growing up. for every one sad tear, there is one shed for fear, one shed for hope and another for relief. never one to shy away from change, I've turned my life into a new thing this summer. full speed ahead, don't care to look back, but now I force myself to think about every little piece of life that passed through my senses and took me along for the ride during this time in between. I now carve out an evening (a life) to reflect on how I could have even managed to get to this moment.
I'll always come back to nature to learn and remember where I come from. to shut up for a minute and listen to swaying trees and to hear about my brother's life on a trail miles up a mountain. to watch the eternal fearlessness of my brother steer him down a path no one else sees. to listen to my father share about how he's made his dreams come true. and to touch my mother in a compassionate exchange. together basking in the glory of intentional human experience in five very separate, but similar ways. sharing blood in our quest for transformation, carrying each other along the way. I come back to family and find comfort knowing we are all lost in the same way.