Day 25 of Reverb10 – Photo

December 25 – Photo – a present to yourself

Sift through all the photos of you from the past year. Choose one that best captures you; either who you are, or who you strive to be. Find the shot of you that is worth a thousand words. Share the image, who shot it, where, and what it best reveals about you.

I had trouble picking one, so here are three.  There are actually probably only about 10 pictures of me from the thousands I took in 2010.  I take pictures of everything, but there are very very few of me.  That’s part of the deal with being the official photographer, both a benefit and a burden.

The first photo is from Easter.  I’m with my daughter and my goddaughter, and this photograph reminds me of the tight community my family is fortunate to be nestled within.  The two women who form the other two legs of the stool are dearer to me than I can express, and I am immensely grateful that our children are growing up together.

The second photo is one that Grace took of me one evening in Legoland.  I am reminded of what it felt like to say yes to them.  To fully lean back into my life with my children, to watch the wonder in their eyes as I agreed to adventures previously unimagined.  It was a magical summer in my life with Grace and Whit and I would like to be that mother more often.

The third photo is from the Mother’s Plunge in Boston in September with Karen Maezen Miller.  This day brought to fruition many of the relationships that I’ve built in the ether over the last year or two.  I loved seeing Corinne and Denise, pictured here, as well as spending the day swimming in the wisdom that both Karen and Katrina Kenison shared with us.

I guess the theme that connects these photographs is community, and a sense of belonging.  In each of them I felt fully relaxed, embraced, seen, and known.  This is a fleeting feeling for me, and one that is rarer than I’d like.  May I find it more often in 2011.