Father of Winter,
You are the black ice threat to my momentum.
As gentle in appearance as the powder of the snow.
But you dictate by your presence how much I may hear
And how far I may go.
Snowdays 2020
Scrinch Scrunch Scrinch Scrunch Scrinch…
We got a few days of real winter. We spent a little bit outside, a lot a bit snuggled in bed reading or sitting by the fire. We also drank a lot of bone broth cause Wesley is a weirdo and thinks it’s amazing. He was so excited to have a “red sled… like the book”. :)
Fires are for Winter. So you love winter.
December 2019
For Buddy: When My Cynicism Meets Your Optimism
We are both right, you know:
These sandcastles could be our homes.
I would be among the ones to tell you: no,
They will erode -
These dreams you build, the people you help,
the audacity of hope.
Join us on the jaded side of history,
the one that few acknowledge
and most simply ignore.
Why else does science mock uncertainty,
And insist we not explore?
Have you not bled the same color as the rest of us?
But what makes you humbling to me:
you keep building dreams in your sandbox,
As if the world were your playground,
As if vacationing at the beach.
Maybe sometimes it isn’t easy for you,
To keep the momentum around,
To sustain the young-at-heart reach.
You’re better at it than I am, though,
And the goal is much more profound
and people much colder, each:
See the spite of selfish spirit,
Face their fury, even fear it,
Feel the ubiquity of pain;
Yet insist on imagined play.
Waves may wash away your towers,
Other kids deny your power,
Most lose childhood to the fray,
Insist again on healing play.
What else will occupy our days
After all sorrow is erased?
When our awkward hate is snatched away;
We will know how god is God of Play.
After all our disenchanted disbelief,
after every jaded bitter grief,
when death alone remains for us to meet,
isn’t it only children
He will greet?
The Poetry of Your Birth, Girl
It should be as simple as
you will be a girl.
The poetry of your birth
should be nothing more
than your biology.
Anything more than that -
and there is much more than that -
is mystery or tragedy.
What theology we know
of the distinction between us
daughter
is derived from the dregs of translated legend,
is the juiced fruit of stories
even those nearest them could hardly fathom.
You may have sinned first
but we both know who sinned worst.
Christmas Eve Service
That you are a girl
Little one,
How long may I call you that?
Will you ever outgrow this viewpoint,
The one that comes from
Trying to feel your tiny movements,
The kicks,
The formidable gathering of strength?
I wonder when it will matter
That you are a girl.
I wonder when the world
Will try to convince you
That is a limitation.
Haven’t they met your mother?
Train rides & Christmas lights to celebrate 20 years with Evan’s brother Raju!
These two <3
Farewell to Salt to Clay Photography
In early 2014 I was looking at grad schools and simultaneously trying to make heads or tails of my camera manual. I had started nannying for Taylor and when she wasn’t editing in her dark basement, she would come upstairs and make us some “toddy”. She would occasionally answer little questions I had about my basic DSLR and I tried not to pester her too much. Eventually, she said we should go out and practice with her daughter, Mae, in the alley behind her house. She said you only learn by picking the camera up and trying and told me to put my manual away for awhile.
You can read that as part of the story for how I became a photographer, but it’s really a snippet from a much bigger story, that is the story of my friendship with Taylor. And I’m here to tell a little more of that friendship story.
If I am to be one thing in life, I hope it is a friend. When Taylor and I started Salt to Clay Photography, we thought of it as an endeavor of friendship. We liked having fun together and creating together, because those are things friends do. It has been said that “Friendship is THE way to change the world” and I really believe that. In our business, we sought first to be friends to each other, and then to extend that friendship to our clients and models and the vendors we worked with. We planned to change the world.
It’s hard to write about the ideas you believe in most. So while I’ve been thinking about this message for awhile now, it still comes haltingly, awkwardly, and honestly cannot live up to my hopes of what I mean or want to communicate. But this is part of being a friend, too : saying things imperfectly because they need to be said.
Taylor and I have decided to close down Salt to Clay Photography. While this “job” has not been without its many struggles, seasons of defeat, competitive moments, or despair, none of these are the reason we’ve decided to close it down. It’s a simple reason: our friendship is more important to us. What I mean to say, is that our personal lives currently require a higher level of friendship from us, and the business is simply too much in the way of being the type of friend we need from each other right now. We are setting aside the role of "business partner" in order to do so.
We are so sad and so grateful. We are not quitting the business of creating together, that is woven into our friendship DNA and will always be something we do. We will miss the amazing people we’ve worked with, and the couples and families who have let us be part of their most intimate days and vulnerable moments. We don’t take for granted being chosen to stand at the altar with you, or the faith you put in us when you let us mark the passing of another year in your family’s lives, or the vulnerability you offered when we asked to share your story with people.
We’re not giving up on the drive we feel to create things, to observe people and learn from them, or to savor every last drop of light in the day. But we will redirect it, in order to be the people we most want to be, which is not business owners.
I did end up attending grad school in 2015, for one week. And then I quit. And I'm still a young immature human, but so far it seems to me that the times that have required the most bravery from me have been the moments where I knew I needed to quit something. I needed to step down from what seemed like a path of success for, what? Something. I often don’t know.
This time though, I know I'm quitting for my friend. I'm quitting so I can try to be a better one. Business is cheap, and any friendship worth having should cost you everything.
We don't drink toddy anymore. Our lives have changed so much over the years. But I look back to that time and it renews my resolve. I gain from it both a sense of longing and a feeling of being shoved forward into this unknown. I see that it's time to put the manual down again and just try. I see that I'm still learning the same lesson from Taylor that she started teaching me back then.
And while I am heartbroken to say goodbye to this chapter in my life and the opportunities it provided, I feel so proud of the work we’ve done together. Proud of the photos we’ve taken, yes, but mostly the friends we’ve made and been. And with that passion in mind, to be good friends to one another and spur each other on to be a good friend to others, I don’t feel that we are losing too much. We are focused on what we always have been. And we plan to change the world.
I had a great little helper this year with Christmas present wrapping. :) We went to buy fabric for ribbon at the store and he insisted we feel everything with our cheeks before deciding.
December Seven Two Thousand Nineteen
You landed with the falling of the snow.
You arrived on the drifting winter clouds.
You awoke the broken notion of family.
You are synonymous
with the mystery
of Christmas.
You enchanted me
with the way your eyes lit up at lights.
You favored the blinking ones,
daily pointed them out.
You were both welcome and strange,
the way I always hoped my life
would be rearranged.
When I think of that day,
twenty years ago,
there is nothing I would change.
There was no better way
to celebrate this holiday,
the one about two people who adopt a baby,
the one about the God who promises to adopt
all who admit they need it, and then some,
the one about how everything is about family,
the one about the beginning of the end
of orphanages.
You are both icon and brother,
symbol and friend.
You always remind me that the lights
are not just for show.
So illuminate the night;
peel the dusk off of
the earth.
Watch each corner of our green trees glow.
Demand the evening find its morning mirth,
ask the dark "How long do you expect to slow
the soul's cascading knowledge of its worth?"
How steadily grows
hope every heart finds hearth.
You landed with the falling of the snow.
You of all people know
family
is invitation
to rebirth.
Some treasures Taylor made that I got at her pottery stand at the craft show! Stupid beautiful.
Pepper Visit December 2019
Cousin Peps came to visit for her birthday. We got stuck on the other side of the pass so we got a hotel in Ellensburg and watched the snow. Surprisingly great sleep for two little ones in a tiny room! The week was filled with lots of adventures and Christmas lights. Happy Birthday Pepper!
✨ ✨✨
These two cousins definitely share some genes. :)
Jones Family Photos 2019 :)
