People and Places Over Things
All this began ten years ago, in a tiny apartment I couldn’t afford. I wanted the little spot with the balcony in the archaic building because it had high ceilings, plaster walls, and black and white floor tiles in the kitchen that I could pretend were European. Sitting on the borrowed futon, I took a blank piece of paper and wrote every place in the world I wanted to see. Red deserts, tall trees, wild dunes, turquoise waters, and ancient ruins. I wanted to see it ALL. I still do. Over all of these places in big black letters I wrote: A WAY TO GET THERE.
The first “there” I ticked off the list was New Zealand.
It was 2010 and that world was more distant than I had expected. Money was scarce for most of us, but that didn’t keep us from dreaming. It meant that everything I did was part of the process. All of the backbreaking jobs, the golden dream jobs that turned up brass, the rice-and-beans dinners, and the years of additional school - all of it was meant to be a way to get to all the "theres" on the list. By saving money and savoring moments, that difficult time taught me to value PEOPLE and PLACES over THINGS.
It became my defining principle, written on post-it notes on mirrors and scraps of paper stuffed in my wallet. Sometimes it was a reminder that I was supposed to be saving money for a trip, not spending it on candles. Sometimes it was a cue that none of this shit matters. Right now, it’s evolved into another layer of the lesson.
The massive landscapes, big trips and epic stories that I love to capture and share are a little further away than they were a few months ago. Lately, I’ve been struggling creatively. I’m afraid that if you take away the People and the Places, all I’m left with is the Things. I have spent the last ten years choosing not to focus on Things. But now I’m inviting you to come on a journey with me, into a new world, one with Things.
During these strange times, I’m going to be taking pictures of things around my house and my neighborhood. There may be more clothes, more objects, more food, and more still-life compositions. All of it is practice noticing “common” things with the acute attention usually applied to our travel adventures.
I’ll be over here practicing noticing the small details of my space.
I know we’re all going through this same process, to differing degrees. We’re trying to figure out how to do what we do without doing it the way we know how. (Say that three times fast.) This is a learning time. To keep our eyes on the prize, I’ll keep reminding us and myself especially, that people and places will always be more important than things.
Every time I share a detail, a memory, or the story behind an object, I will tag it #peopleandplacesoverthings as a reminder of my priorities. And I hope you will join me in this!
When we share the things we notice in front of us instead of sharing pictures of where we wish we were, we are honoring the present. When we remember that the things are just things and are not what all of this is about, we are honoring our journey. When we tag #peopleandplacesoverthings we remind ourselves and each other that this is all just another way to get there.