Riddle me this.
What do you get when a bunch of old friends from the theater (and their kids) get together and go on vacation together?
Answer: a very dramatic vacation.
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friends
I wanted to include Stephanie in this project for two main reasons. First, she’s awesome. Second, she represents the relationships in my life which have been formed through blogging. You see, I’ve never actually met Stephanie. Yesterday when we video chatted for our ‘portrait session’ was the first time we’d ever spoken face to face (as it were).
There is a moment when a reader/commenter relationship on a blog turns into a friendship. I can’t put my finger on exactly where that moment is, but with Stephanie it was soon after discovering each other that we became friends. Much of what I know about her, you could know too if you read her delightful blog. But I’m learning more through our email and phone conversations and we have plans to meet in the flesh this summer.
It’s an oddly intimate relationship where you start from a place of knowing someone before you’ve even met.
I know that Stephanie is trained as a social worker and worked as such until recently. And that she recently made a leap of faith to follow her dream and become a professional photographer. I know that the choice to become a stay at home mother and freelance photographer was driven by passion but that the transition to it’s reality has been somewhat bumpy. I know that Stephanie has deep and private feelings about spirituality and that they aren’t exactly the ones she was raised with. I know that Stephanie takes great pride in being a woman and a mother and that both of these things are paramount in her life choices.
She writes with a strong and irreverent voice but her actual voice is soft and sweet. To me, her photography illustrates her straightforward and insightful view of the world as her images are revealing without being contrived.
And in addition to all these things, I also know that when we finally meet, it will be wonderful.
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Natalie and I have been friends for a long time. In fact, the story our relationship has so many chapters that I don’t really even know where to start.
We met through religious youth group in high school, lived down the street from each other, traveled to Israel together, struggled through teenage torment together, spent weekends and summers on retreats and at camps together, wrote letters and spent hours on the phone throughout college, ended up back in the same city as young marrieds and had our first babies within the span of one month twelve years ago.
Natalie lives the life of an observant Jew, married to a Rabbi and raising three children in the faith. But despite the differences in the details of our homes, our lives aren’t that different at all. We struggle with the paradox of motherhood and all it means—being complete individuals while raising kind, thoughtful children who are steeped in community. She is deeply involved in the school and temple and is the center of her family’s observance and traditions. She is a creative and wonderful (Kosher) chef and a pretty lousy housekeeper. She has a fantastic, if slightly snarky, sense of humor (let’s hope so, after that last comment) and is the person I call when I really need to talk. She always knows just the right thing to say and I inevitably get off the phone feeling better.
One of Natalie’s strongest qualities as a woman, a mother and a friend is that she is keenly aware of her weaknesses. She is always striving to be her best self and I can’t think of a better example for her to set for her three children. She was raised by her mother and two older sisters, which is perhaps where her strong sense of sisterhood comes from. She is warm and clever and stronger than she gives herself credit for and I can’t imagine my life without her in it.
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If you’re a fan of the New York Times crossword puzzle you probably already know that the University of Maine is in Orono. I know this because I attended college there. It’s possible that I am the only Jewish girl from the Upper East Side of Manhattan who had ever before, and probably since, gone to school there. And while I was pretty stoked to escape my high school roots I admit that I was lonely for other New Yorkers.
Until I met Heather.
She was a welcome burst of loud, in-your-face, fast-paced energy in a sea of Birkenstocks and forestry majors. We were instant friends and have been for the twenty years since.
Heather is gifted with words and writes with a voice as intimate as if you were talking over coffee. She is smart and funny and very outgoing. She is as sharp as a tack and remembers everything we’ve ever discussed. She is up to date on, well, everything, and I can’t for the life of me understand how she manages to read as many newspapers and magazines as she does while raising two kids and working freelance. She had a successful career in fundraising and it won’t surprise me one bit when she returns to the non-profit world with a force.
And what’s underneath the engaged and boisterous exterior? More of the same. Devoted and passionate about everything she does, if you’re choosing players for your team—you’d be wise to pick Heather first.
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(Please click photo for better viewing.)
Keely. Massage therapist. Holistic healer. Dancer. Performer. Seeker of knowledge and lifelong learner. Vegetarian. Left of center thinker. Entrepreneur. Mother. Friend.
Please click here or here to see additional images from this shoot.
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