portrait sesh | Tessa and Andy

Tessa and Andy's rehearsal dinner was in park along the Columbia River Gorge. We ate tacos and drank margaritas, and the day was filled with that easy kind of happiness that comes when you have something to look forward to. 

(photos) on 120 film with a borrowed Hasselblad | want your picture taken too? send me an e-mail!

loud & clear | When We Think About Change

Now that I'm back on the West Coast, I find myself talking a lot about Northampton - you know, the classic "home for break" question: so, how do you like it there? The answer has changed since my last trip home, because something has changed between me and my little New England town. 

My displacement must have been wicked-away slowly, gradually - yet, it seemed as sudden as a closing window. I remember standing infront of a magnolia tree, when I looked around and wondered how did I get here? All of my resistance had faded and It felt like could finally see this place. I understood it. It felt like mine. 

I wrote about this particular moment over on The Equals Record ...

"Philosophers call moments like that a “paradigm shift,” because it wasn’t just about a bird's beak for Darwin. Suddenly, it was about everything. He saw turtles and trumpet vines and all sorts of creatures—and he wondered how they had come to be there."

you can read the full essay here!

I couldn't go back to seeing Northampton the way I had before, as flat and far-away. Because that's the thing about paradigm shifts: once they happen, you live in the everything after.

(photos) on film with Leica CL | blossoms on Main St.

loud & clear | The Things We Lose

Around this time last year, I took a trip to Chicago for my best friend Laura’s bridal shower. A few weeks before I left, my grandmother visited me in Portland and over lunch we talked about how excited I was to see the city. Grammy grew up just outside of Chicago, and she told me about going to Cubs games with her brothers and about her Dad taking the El from their little suburban town to his law office in the city.  Her town, called Lombard, was famous for their Lilacs. And, at the end of the season, there was a Lilac Parade and the crowing of a Lilac Queen.

When I arrived in Chicago, I told Laura this story as we drove out to her childhood home. With much surprise, on both our parts, it turned out that Lombard is just one town over from her own (They even share a high school - which both my grandmother and Laura attended, all be it about five decades apart!)

So, the next afternoon Laura took me to Lilacia Park, right in the center of Lombard. It was one of those funny full-circle moments that make life feel unexpected and predictable - all at once. 

Each may, I look forward to the Lilacs blooming because they remind me of my mother. Each Spring, she would put bunches of them on every end-table and counter top in our house. My essay for Equals Record this week is about how they make me feel close to her and about the slow process of learning to see your parents as people. 

"It’s a different kind of hurt, as I’ve grown older, to lose a person—not just the figure of my mother. I wish I knew how she was funny or how she was sad; if there were things she lost that she never stopped missing."

you can read the full essay here.

It was only after my trip to lilacs that I realized the lineage and the place that connects us all. I think of my mother, remembering her own mother standing with clippers in her childhood backyard. Grammy is trimming off the lilacs and thinking of Lilacia Park.

(photos) on film with Pentax K1000 | Lilacia Park in Lombard, IL

loud & clear | Be Boundless.

During an especially hard sequence in my yoga class, the teacher said something that made me feel called-out. He was talking about effort and going beyond our limits, about how rewarding it is to push onward. "Only by giving one hundred percent" he said "are we able to get one hundred percent back."

He's not the first person to say you get what you give, but I think he meant something deeper than that. When we give less than our best, like eighty percent, we actually get far less than that returned. It's not a direct exchange - it's more like sixty or seventy -  because the product of our work falls short.  And the cruel irony here is that eighty percent isn't easy! It's exhausting, and it's hard, and it hurts. We give a lot of ourselves, even when we don't give everything, so we often feel it's enough. 

My short essay for The Equals Record today is about learning to let go of the boundaries I've created for myself, because I'm scared of being caught empty.

"We learn early on how to give just enough—to burn, but just a little, and be done. It’s smart to save a part of yourself, because what if this only gets harder?"

It's about the beauty that's made by reckless hearts. By giving more than you think it is wise to. 

p.s. more writings from my column, Loud & Clear, which focuses on outward - and inward - exploration!
emily dickinson + the hard part of dreams
the first snow + falling in love

stonebarns + coming full circle

moving to massachusetts + redefinition

fog + being alone

loud & clear | The Feathered Thing

After I committed to UMass, I took a red eye flight with my sister to see the place I'd be calling home. At the time, the anticipation of moving here was everything to me. In the wake of a break-up, I had thrown myself into my graduate school applications. And, after I submitted them, I held on to the single hope of a place I could create, any way I wanted.

That weekend, we visited the house of Emily Dickinson, Amherst's most notable resident. She was a delicate recluse and, in my quiet fear, I found myself to relating to her so deeply. I wanted to go back to being "about to begin", to the part that's just imagining.

Today's post for The Equals Record was inspired Emily and the comfort in unknowing
You can read it here!

When I got home from the trip, I locked myself in the bathroom and just sobbed on the floor of my studio apartment.  I was overwhelmed with trying to find a place to live, and shipping my things, and figuring out my new health insurance.  It turned out that the shiny goal I had of being professor was made up of lots of hellacious logistical details.

I was crying for another reason too. Now that my dream had come true, it wasn't a dream anymore. There was no longer a fictional far-off place for me to put my joy. Instead, there was a very real town in western New England, that was wonderful but different than I'd imagined.  

When I stopped sniffling and called my best friend, Laura, she told me something that I've held on to:

 "There's always going to be an oh shit moment after getting exactly what you wanted." She's right about that, isn't she? It's a beautiful thing to have a dream, but it can be really hard to live it.

(photos) on film with Pentax K1000 | Emily Dickinson's House. Amherst, MA

portrait sesh | Tahmures and Family

I've always thought I'd want a little girl (someday in the far, far future). But spending the day with Tahmures changed my mind. My friend, Rachel and her husband have raised just the sweetest little boy I've ever met. It's so obvious, even in the first moments of meeting them, what love and gentleness do for a home and for a child. Oh, and those big eyes? and that clever mouth? Absolutely undeniable.

This year I vowed to take more pictures of people, so connecting with Rachel (who is a brilliant photographer in her own right) was such a blessing. I learned a lot from these four rolls of film! Babies are squirmy and hard to catch in low-light with a slow shutter. But, I love them so much since they haven't developed a "camera face" yet. Candids every time!! That's probably why I like this one so much. Oh babies, such divas ... 

(photos) on Kodak Portra with Pentax K1000 | want your picture taken too? send me an e-mail!

loud + clear | Snow Fall(ing)

Today I'm so excited to be sharing my collaboration with The Equals Record! The column is called Loud & Clear, a title inspired by old radio calls. To say "you're coming in loud and clear" means "I'm receiving your message" or "I understand".  Every two weeks, on Tuesday, I'll share with you a story about an outward - and inward - adventure. The column focuses on exploration and the messages that can be found in new places, if we only take the time to listen. (You know this girl loves her nature metaphors!)

The first installment is all about snow flurries and the first feelings of love.
You can read it here!

I could (and have) gone on and on about how lucky I am to be working with the creative team, Miya and Elisabeth. Their vision and guidance reminds me me why I take out my camera, instead of just holing up in my study to read Judith Butler for the next 5-7 years.

p.s. fall writings on The Equals Record

stonebarns + coming full circle

moving to massachusetts + redefinition

fog + being alone

(photo) Loud + Clear header design by Miya Hirabayashi

in pioneer magazine | The Dream Away Lodge

Dream Away Lodge is an eclectic hideaway tucked into the Berkshires, forty-miles away from Northampton on a winding two-lane road. 

Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Allen Ginsberg spent some time there on tour as the Rolling Thunder Review (see this Photo in Vanity Fair).  Their photos hang on the walls, over dream catchers and guitars. Not props, but pieces of the life still lived by locals and visitors to The Dream Away. It's hard to make nostalgia feel authentic, but this place does it. The warmth and energy are real. 

(photos) on Kodak Portra 800 film with Leica CL | for the March issue of Pioneer Magazine, on newstands through-out the Pioneer Valley! more on Flickr. (p.s) The Dream Away in Oprah Magazine.

on The Equals Record | What Are You Reading (Offline, That Is?)

When I was invited by The Equals Record to guest edit the weekly column What Are You Reading, (Offline, That Is) I immediately thought of my friends Laura and Meg. They're both beautiful writers, bloggers, and my go-to girls when I need a good read. So, we met for coffee at Stumptown in New York - just one of many adventures we had together that weekend - and I asked them for a few of their favorites. 

Here's a list of the books we picked, and you can read all about why we love them here! 

Laura | Little Things and Curiosities recommended ... 

• Love Walked In by Marisa De Los Santos 

Meg | The Wild and Wily Ways of a Brunette Bombshell recommended ... 

• Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed 

and I recommended ...

• High Fidelity by Nick Hornby 
• Walkable City: How Downtowns Can Save America, One Step at a Time by Jeff Speck
• Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion 

(photos) on film with Pentax K1000 (p.s.) at Stumptown Portland | and another from Stumptown NYC

photo sesh | by Cassy Berry

"Keep away from people who belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." - Mark Twain

If ole Mark is right (and I think he is), Cassy Berry is one of the truly great. She is both an incredible fine artist and a heart-swelling wedding photographer. Her work exists on a whole 'nother level, yet she has the ability to make me feel more capable and creative in everything we do together.

A few days before I came out East, we ventured around our little hometown of Eugene, Oregon.  When she sent these photos to me, I couldn't help but smile thinking back a few years to the first time Cassy and I had coffee.  I must have exclaimed "me too!!" a dozen times. And we've been half-explorer, half-homebody, sensitive soul sisters ever since. 

Moving has made friendship sometimes feel both complicated and elusive. These photos are a good reminder of just how instantaneous connection can be.

(photos) by Cassy Berry. She is also miracle-worker who took my headshot (p.s.) one | two that I took of Cassy, on film. 

on the Equals Record | World of One

Today on The Equals Record, I'm sharing a little reflection on sleeping alone, inspired by a foggy morning.

"All this time, I thought it was habit. Or, I thought maybe it was loneliness. Some nights it felt like a symbolic act - half filled heart, half filled bed, defined by absence. But I felt full standing out in the fog, clutching my camera and completely alone. There was a surrounding presence in the dampening air. A weight, like the undisturbed covers."

you can read the full essay here.

(photo) on film with Leica CL for The Equals Record | fog in Northampton

on the Equals Record | Beginning to End

A few weekends ago, I made a trip out to Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture where my friend Nichole is an apprentice in the flower fields. The first frost had come in New England, and I deeply needed to see something - and someone - flourishing.

I learned so much from her about acceptance and change. Lessons she's learned from life on the farm. I'm sharing one of those lessons on the Equals Record today.

"She had followed these flowers from start to finish—and here we were at the start again. I guess circles are comforting that way. The further you are from where you began, the closer you are to the next beginning."

You can read the full essay here. 

(photos) on film with Pentax k1000 for The Equals Record | globe amaranth at Stone Barns 

on the Equals Record | An Indefinite Season

I'm very excited to share my collaboration with the Equals Record, an online publication "devoted to pursuing meaning through topics of timely and timeless significance." It's edited by Elisabeth Fraser and features some of my favorite digital storytellers, including Shoko Wanger and Erin Boyle. And the design, from creative director Miya Hirabayashi, is so clean and lovely. It's an online space I'm honored to be a part of. 

My first essay is about struggling to define myself (and this season) in a time of transition.

"I don’t know what it means yet to claim this place. I catch glimpses maybe — of the New England thing — in katydids and the peeling paint on the front stoop. But I can’t read the sky here. I’m constantly caught without a coat or sweating in my boot-socks.

At home, I knew when the roses bloomed a few weeks early."

You can read the full essay here.

(photos) on film with Pentax K1000 | taken for the Equals Record. 

weddings on film | Meyers

It's funny the way that memories age. Sometimes, as the time slips away, the day does too. The nuances fade, and it all becomes flatter - just a set of stories, an old script. But there are also days like this one. A reserve against the bitter world, still vibrant and real each time we imagine. 

(photos) on film with Pentax k1000 | Laura Marie and Radley Meyers. 

(p.s.) the first set, just before | vegas  | vegas aftermath | bridal shower

meyers wedding | Just Before

Getting ready for a big event - primping, eyelash curling, singing along to the radio - is just as fun as the event itself. I love the lead-up, with all the energy and the excitement. How many times have you imagined this day? and it's finally here! just about to begin! There is so much hope in the hours before - waiting for something wonderful.

(photos) on film, pentax k1000. 

the wedding planner.

Right now my real life is half-way packed into cardboard boxes. I’m moving out of my apartment on Tuesday and flying to San Francisco on Wednesday, to begin festivities for Laura’s wedding! It’s the sparkling light at the end of my bubble-wrapped tunnel. Boy do I ever have her big day on the brain. So, I put together three days of wedding-themed posts. Let’s call it Wedding Week! 

First up, we’re going back in time to last summer (it’s amazing the things you find in the moving process!) when Tessa and I planned a wedding. Yes, the title of this post is a reference to the Jennifer Lopez movie. What young girl didn’t watch it and think to themselves: that’s what I want to be when I grow up! We already had a habit of throwing extravagant parties – mostly for ourselves – so we thought we’d give it a go.

The venue was the Surf Sand Resort in Cannon Beach, and the Oregon Coast is notoriously overcast. So, we planned the wedding in tones complimentary to gray : turquoise and sea-shell pink.

the design elements we included ...

• Carnation Pomanders : hung on the aisle chairs for the guests of honor (video how-to)
• Flower Cones Made of Map Paper : lined the rest of the aisle chairs 
• Alter Curtain : The coast also gets windy, so we wanted something with a lot of movement. We dip-dyed white sheets and thrifted for coral-colored floral sheets, which were torn length-wise and tied on a ribbon for hanging. 
• 750 ft of Bunting : We thought that dip-dyes and color gradients would really create that washed-out ocean look. So the bunting was done using four different shades of each color in succession.
• Peaked Edge Dip-Dyed Round Table Runners: We cut the pattern using this Martha Stewart How-To, and dip-dyed the outer edges using a clothes line and buckets of RIT dye. It was placed over standard banquet linens. (here’s a close up of the dye-job … it turned out so pretty) 
• Floral Cake Centerpieces: Each table had its own gluten free cake from Sweet Pea Baking Co in Portland. They were set with a cake-stand and cake-cutter which was tagged with the words “wait, wait – cake cutting at 8:30”. The floral cake toppers were done by a family-friend, using mums, hydrangeas and garden roses. 
• Hand Painted Driftwood Signs : we collected the driftwood when we came out for the menu tasting with the caterer, the Wayfarer. The signs – for the guestbook, the reception, and the present table – were hung with vintage lace ribbon. 

it all made for one happy bride and groom! 

(design element photos) by Samantha Shorey, on film with Pentax K1000. More on my Flickr!
(photo of the bride and groom) courtesy of David Tureson