in california with my toes in the sand

I love exploring new places.  This past summer, I ventured to Northern California for the first time.

It was misty and cold. The damp weather chilled my thin blood but the beauty warmed my heart. 

Every now and then, I'll turn on the song "Lights" by Journey, sway a little bit and hope that I make it back to that city by the bay.

memories

Good Company

I recently decided to start featuring people on my blog.
 Friends who inspire me or encourage me to be a better person.
But most of all, people whom I love and who make me feel loved in return.  

That's what life is all about right?

The first time I had a conversation with Emma, she told me she wanted to chop her hair off.  Being an advocate for short cuts, I strongly encouraged the idea.  At that time, I had just decided to grow my locks out and I would have killed for her long hair.  It was the perfect color and consisted of the curls I can only dream of having.  It was beautiful. A few months later, the length was gone but the beauty remained. She looked just as stunning.  I admire Emma.  Her courage, her views on life and the love her and her husband share for each other.  I've had the chance to interact with her in different spaces-- the beach, in the water, and the classroom.  She is fun to be around and very kind.

And besides all of that goodness, she is real and she is talented.

She is real talented.

Below, she writes about her love of film photography.

Good Company for sure.

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my love for film photography, for light and texture and raw storytelling, grew from a love for words. writing, the art of stringing good words together to create an image, taught me to see the world, to absorb rich details and feel the electricity of human experience. to write is to notice you are alive, to thank God for fingers and toes, for afternoon naps and love. to write is to allow yourself to feel thick emotion, to simultaneously experience and observe your own narrative.

shooting film, likewise, has expanded my gratitude for living--for the way afternoon light floods my apartment, the texture of my bedspread, my husbands skin. film is honest, tactile, flawed. film is inconvenient, it requires patience. in a world where everything rushes, film is slow, a process of mechanics and human touch. i wind a roll of thirty-five millimeter film through my canon AE-1 and carefully focus the lens, releasing the shutter with my breath half held. days or weeks later, i find my way to the drugstore and develop twenty-four exposures of good moments, grand and ordinary. an incredible view of the sea, or peaches on my wooden cutting board.