once
while riding bikes down royal street in new orleans, we came across the famous lady louis with her clarinet. it's true. she really does hold those crazy high notes like nobody else in the world. I saw it with my own two eyes, heard it with my own two ears.
once
we watched the sky turn pink. tried to hold onto it by pointing our cameras and our phones at it but gave up in the end. stood in that otherworldly glow until the last of the pink disappeared and we could see the moon.
once
I stood in the teeny tiny bathroom of a teeny tiny camper (circa 1971) and thought, if I could marry this wallpaper, I would.
once
I stood on a crowded train headed for queens. with my suitcase awkwardly sandwiched between my knees, I balanced a book in one hand and gripped a subway strap with the other. I was lost in thought (and wobbling just a little bit) when I felt a light tap on my shoulder. a man traveling with his family offered me his seat. just a few minutes earlier, I'd watched them as we passed the brooklyn bridge, how they'd quietly marveled at the sight of it. kids wide-eyed, adults too. I held onto that little sliver of wonder I'd witnessed, the kindness too, all the way to la guardia.
once
I wanted to make a portrait of a woman I saw on the street whose eyebrows were, in a word, complicated. but when I asked for her permission, she said no, so I shot the earrings she was selling instead.
once
we stood on a beach in south carolina. close enough to the edge of the ocean to feel cold water lick at our feet. I couldn't stop pointing my camera at her hair, wind-whipped and all lit up, spun from sugar, from neon kool-aid powder, from hours spent dreaming of the most shocking shade of pink, from saved christmas money and birthday money and all the pennies collected in between. couldn't stop thinking she was the teenager I always wanted to be.
once
I took a walk in my old neighborhood in the city. realized everything was completely different yet exactly the same.
once
I stood at the corner of ponce, spied a bike perched above the power lines that genuinely looked as if it wanted to make a break for it. like it wanted to pedal itself backwards, right up into that wide open sky. thought, me too, buddy. me too.
once
we stood beneath the great angel oak in john's island, south carolina. ran our hands gently over ancient mammoth limbs that seemed to wind and curve outwards instead of upwards, as if pleading with something wholly unknown. I was not prepared for the way this made me feel.
once
I got lost in chinatown in san francisco. turned right when I should have turned left or left when I should have turned right, who knows. felt the edges of panic and ducked into a nearby stairwell to reassess, which is when I convinced myself it might be nice to just be lost for a little while. to use an entirely different compass, if only for a few minutes. to wander for an hour with nary a glance at google maps.
once
while we were passing through palm springs, I made my entire family wait in the car while I ventured inside the parker hotel. I had to see the place for myself. and it had to be done without two kids and a husband in tow, which was totally the right call at the time. and of course, completely worth it.
once
we showed up at the park for international pillow fight day. expected to find forty, maybe fifty people gathered but instead arrived to find at least a couple hundred. and so we made our way into the middle of that big, beautiful (strangely hopeful) pillowy mess and fought until we were covered with sweat, until we were so exhausted we could no longer dodge the swings, until our stomachs hurt from the laughing.
once
I wandered the streets of a small folly island neighborhood in south carolina. stumbled onto a fence draped with candy-colored fishing buoys and was instantly filled with a particular nostalgia I couldn't name. and then I remembered a picture book I loved when I was little, and the girl in it who wore a beaded necklace, one that looked just like those fishing buoys. I remembered how much I loved that necklace, how much I wanted to hold it in my hands and wear it around my own neck. and so I stood there and let myself slip down inside that lovely childhood rabbit hole for a few minutes. savored the memory of it like the last bit of candy on my tongue.
once
I made a portrait of a young man who wore his hair like a radiant, solar crown. like a magnificent amber cloud.
once
my friend kateri said you couldn't quarantine magic hour. and she was right.
