There’s this place filled with creative thoughtful people who share many of the same philosophies and respect each other when their opinions differ. The thing that bonds these folks together is a common love for the art of photography. Strange thing, though, this neighborhood? It’s virtual. It’s Flickr and blogging and Facebook (and others I’m sure). It’s women who check in on each other when one hasn’t been around for a while. It’s a mutual admiration society in the best way, and it’s a visual feast. It’s friendships 2.0 – weird, maybe, to your grandmother. People who’ve never met – sharing intimate details of their lives with each other and trusting one another with secrets. It’s following your gut instinct and it’s impossible to explain to our kids (whom we would never ever allow to do the same). It’s meeting a bunch of strangers for lunch and conversation and it’s some of the most intimate friendships I have ever had. I can’t fully explain it except to say that we don’t get to choose our actual neighbors. And while I’m beyond lucky in that department, there’s something to be said for creating boundary-less networks and filling them with souls who we just plain connect with.

Last month hundreds of these women (I don’t mean to be sexist, but I can’t actually think of any men in my network) took part in an annual ritual of thanksgiving. We counted our blessings in images every day for thirty days. We went about our days considering what we had to be thankful for (and photographing some of them). And while I’d like to tell you that I spend my entire life like this, it wouldn’t be true. But for one month all the nit-picky crap was overshadowed by the small blessings of every day. And of those, there are many.

At the onset, I thought of it as a useful exercise in creative photography. Before long, though, my thinking had begun to change. New habits perhaps? A movement toward a glass-half-full mentality? I’m hoping.

Insert reality check: the things which annoy me daily did not go away. Scrubbing toilets did not become a joy and long dark cold afternoons did not suddenly become light and warm. But truth be told, things I may have previously ignored became drops filling my glass beyond that halfway line. So today, though I might not write about it, or even photograph it, I will walk through my day looking for the things I’m grateful for.

And I’ll start here. With you, my friends.

first, let me thank everyone who entered. some of you wrote me revealing and personal email messages about why you wanted this and frankly, i wish i had the time and resources to give you each a photo session. because i think that every woman should be able to see what’s beautiful about themselves and i truly think that i can help to do this, i am offering the following for the month of may: a half-price photo session especially tailored to the needs of women. it will include up to two hours of shooting time and one 8″x12″ fine-art print, any additional prints that you wish to order will be offered to you at a discount as well. please contact me directly for additional details. i hope some of you will pull the trigger on this and take advantage of the promotion. it’s can be a truly empowering experience to see a beautiful photograph of yourself.

now, for the winners: tara and harlene. their names were chosen completely at random. but if you believe in any sort of fate or life-circles or other such stuff, maybe it wasn’t so random. tara and i have been connected virtually for quite some time. we are friends who have never met. we know people in common in the non-virtual world and there’s no question that when we (finally) meet face to face it’ll be easy. and harlene? well that’s a long and lovely story. harlene and i have known each other for 30 years (yes, harlene, i did the math) but haven’t seen each other for close to 15. ladies, i can’t wait to get you behind my lens. call me?

it’s a useful thing, this journaling of one’s days. when march ended i thought: thanks for nothing. that’s two in a row i wasn’t sad to see go. all i could remember was painful anticipation of a spring that still hasn’t arrived, after an epic winter that never saw me changing out of my jeans and woolies.

but then something happened.

i looked back at my photos from the month and remembered exactly what did happen during, what turned out to be, a very eventful month. i remembered two days away alone with my mother for the first time in years. i saw my work hanging on the wall of an art gallery and even received a check. while i was there, i remembered to take a few minutes to feel the sand in my toes. i remembered that i saw the fruits of my elder son’s months of hard work when he brought home second trimester grades proving that others recognized his efforts as well. i remembered that my husband embarked on the next phase of his career and has found some satisfaction and success in doing so. i remembered walking in the woods with my parents after they each recovered from recent illness. i remembered how it felt to photograph them as they cuddled and laughed and i remembered fully understanding the word blessing in that moment.

i remembered, as well, that i began planning for my first solo show, which will open at the end of this month, and all of the excitement that goes with such a thing. i remembered four days traveling with my son and making memories i know we’ll both cherish.

i remembered time spent with friends and cookies and milk with my kids and the biggest brightest moon i’ve ever seen.

i remembered trying to find a few moments to exercise and being interrupted by batman, and i remember not minding at all.

i remember march, and at least for right now, it doesn’t matter if spring ever comes.

when i first left home this is where i went.

no way was i ready to be on my own, but that’s what was expected, so i went. i fell in love and had my heart broken there. i came of age and began my journey there. i met my husband there and fifteen years (one marriage, one divorce, three jobs, graduate school two mortgages and a child) later we spent our honeymoon there. my heart lives there. and yet, life keeps me away.

it’s an ache like no other – a longing for a place. so this trip, some time to be alone with my older child, it was an easy choice.

we went to maine.

when you’re nearly 13 and you have a 3 year old brother who is constantly running through the house in underpants and a superhero cape you might need to get away and not really even know it.

so we did. we packed up the car and drove north. we’re lucky to have people who open their doors for us when we call. and others who show us their favorite places, and still more who would have, had we driven further.

we are blessed indeed and knowing you all are there helps to soothe the ache.

big huge monumental scary things are all around us. i have no answers. donate? pray? educate and recycle? karma. i truly believe in universal energy. every little thing matters. every act of kindness.

like marlene. i met her at our local coffee shop. she had a baby with her. (it’s always okay to make conversation with women who have babies with them, right? plus she just looked interesting, and i couldn’t stop myself from striking up a conversation.) she seemed, maybe, a little old to have a newborn. but who knows? and the gorgeous child, swaddled under multiple blankets, had skin of a different color. i asked how old. and then we were chatting. and i heard some of her story. and she had my card. it went from there.

i invited marlene to bring the baby to be photographed without even a second thought.

marlene is a volunteer. she cares for infant babies who are ready for adoption but have not yet been placed with their families. these babies stay with her from the time they leave the hospital for four to six weeks. she holds them, rocks and soothes them, feeds and wakes with them, changes, bathes and warms them, she mothers them. when the babies are handed to their forever mothers and fathers those parents can be certain that even though their babies weren’t with them for the first weeks of their lives, they were with someone who loved them.

as i clicked shot after shot, i couldn’t help thinking of the parents. the parents who wouldn’t have the opportunity to hire a photographer—should they want to—to photograph the fleeting infant moments. the tiny hands and amazing newborn skin. i couldn’t help thinking about what they might be feeling when marlene placed that baby in their arms. and the gift i could give them of sending them these photos. i hope i get the chance to photograph her as she grows and follow the progress as she and her parents become a family.

of marlene and i? as long as she volunteers of herself, i’ll do the same. really, who gets the gift here after all?

and that women at all stages, at all ages, continue to bond over their mothering, over their experiences and their womanhood? and that friendships form from tiny sparks of conversation on the coffee shop line? and people, like marlene, give of themselves—it all gives me hope. and hope is what i need right now to keep me putting one foot in front of another.

35/365

i left my house with no one in the car. learning to separate is only one of the things i (we?) did with more ease the second time around. i had no particular destination in mind but i had an hour and twenty minutes to myself. of course i could have opted for something more traditionally decadent like a bath and/or nap but after a week of canceled school and sick cooped up kids i needed out. so i left. i drove. not wanting to waste any of my precious minutes on the travel (or standing in line at the supermarket) i made it exactly half a mile down the road and found my car turning into the driveway of a friend.

do you have this friend? the one who doesn’t mind if you stop over unannounced? who will gladly put a kettle on for you and serve you her leftovers? she’s a blessing to be sure. and it’s amazing, but she’s not the only one i’ve got. of course it’s a small town and you could say i’m lucky but i think it’s more than that. proof: yesterday a different neighbor called when she couldn’t get home from work at lunch and i walked her dogs. the day before that, yet a different neighbor sent her elfin daughter across the street to my house in an ice storm when she read on facebook that i was stranded at home with (gasp) no coffee.

everywhere i’ve lived since college it’s been like this for me. as a new mother in new york city i made a friend who had a habit of calling me just before dinner and casually letting me know that she had made extra chicken nuggets for her two kids if i wanted to bring my toddler over. i would wheel our high-chair down the hall, into the elevator and down the two flights to her apartment. many days she was the only adult i spoke to all day. thirteen years later, we’re still friends. when my second son was born my neighbor had a baby just exactly at the same time – only i hadn’t done it in ten years, and she had done it just two years earlier. i was a rookie by any standards, and constantly running out of crucial baby-items. but kristen was just a stones throw. and when she had to go to nursery school parents’ night and had never before left her three year old with anyone except her in-laws, she dropped her at my house.

you can call it luck. i prefer to call it karma, but whatever you call it, i think it’s just about opening your own door.

if you’re reading this and feeling a twinge of envy, unlock your door, welcome in your neighbors and see what happens.

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.

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.

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.

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.