Dana + Jamil

Dana and Jamil were married last month out in New Jersey, from where each of them hails.

Sometimes it is funny to imagine two people – lives disparate, unmet, going about the business that leads them to grow separately into the same kind of good and kind person, caring about others, learning things, turning to social work, meeting finally, dating, falling in love, then one going off to Ukraine for two years to make the world better, and both ending up back in Jersey on a day forecast to rain but only doing so after the marriage, after the party.

Sometimes life works out for the best, and I wish that for Dana and Jamil, who deserve each other in all the best possible ways.

You guys rock.

Upwards and onwards, ya’ll. Be so well.

Love, Sarah

Beanzo

At Brooklyn Bridge Park on one of the first warm days this spring, I photographed the Dary Family, Jen, Chris, and Noah.

Oh, Bean. What a light-filled little lad! You are sunshine in peanut form.

Noah was the first chitlin that I nannied for after I moved to Brooklyn, and from five months to 1.5 years, he’s been a warm, sociable part of my life. On bad days, I would complain, and he would nod along as if he knew exactly what I meant, and then would proceed to entertain me with giggles while we listened to Sam Cooke or chat my blues away in little squawks.

I wrote this for him the last time I watched him.

To the baby I love: 

One year and one month ago, you became a constant part of my world. As a five-month-old ball of whimpers and coos, all head and smiles and thighs, I learned to care for and love you.

We grew together, you navigating your first year – first words and steps and toys – and me my first year in the city. I guess it was both our first years here.

It seemed to fly from my perspective, but for you, it must feel like an endless mish mash of daily cats and moo sounds, walks and bottles, baths and grape halves. Some days with mama, some days with dada, and some days with me.

There was a time when I knew you best second only to your parents, whom I’ve come to consider some of the most influential and important people in my life. They are good stock, and so you are, too.

Tonight, I stroked your blonde hair and temple, your round cheek, as you ate your last bottle before bed. Drowsy when you finished, you leaned heavily into me, nuzzling my shoulder, and we stayed in the warm growing dark of this April evening until you fell asleep.

This is one of the last times I have to remember you and you me, until another unknown time, in a different place across the country. 

From New York to San Fran, you will grow from a smart, sweet-tempered, city baby into a kind and sharing toddler, and no doubt into a happy and empathetic little boy. 

I hope to see you soon, whether in New York or California, as your Sawkster will miss you.

Be well, little bean.

Love, your loving nanny

Dana and Jamil

Dana is someone whose laughter is an infectious outburst of raucous zeal, whose heart is kind and wide and enthusiastic, whose curls and life are everywhere. Jamil is her perfect foil, sending serious, simmering talks into boiling roiling giggles, centering her in his big embrace.

The three of us went up to the High Line one day last fall to get a few engagement photos in before the deep, long winter sent us indoors.

These two! – These two are getting married in the morning. And though it may drizzle and rain tomorrow, their bright smiles will fog my lens with their warmth. I wish all the best for them tomorrow and every day!

See you in the morning! Be well.

– Sarah

Here We Stand

(3/29/14)

2:56a – I blinked and March finished in a succession of quick minutes as winter instead of spring.

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As the lion that began March roared solidly through the last weekend of the month with flurries and rain, puppies and I traded concrete and real estate for fields and trees – multi-story city parking lots for the peaceful oasis of Martin Gap Road – where we holed up back in central Pennsylvania again, bleating as contentedly as little lambs. There, we were warm in piles of blankets and couch pillows, full on tacos and Texas chili and cornbread, happy with friends and old companions and baby chatter.

We played in mud, filling our lungs with the damp scent of soaked and dripping pine boughs. We ran in grass, willing our legs to forget the memory of asphalt for soft, squelching ground. We slept in late, stilling time into slow hours drinking coffee with bedhead in pale morning light. We talked in turns, spilling stories that mixed with crumbs on the candlelit tabletop deep into the night.

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Winter is finally settling into warmer drizzles, and I’m ready for the next phase of things. Similar to when I left New Mexico, lately I’m wondering where I belong – what I should be doing with my time and my energy, my life – and so I think on it during long walks with puppies or late night drives from Brooklyn to Huntingdon.

“Where, where is the town?/Now, it’s nothing but flowers” . . . 

Though I’m questioning things and am unsure of my place once again – grey city or blue mountains, wide horizons or high rises – I’m more at ease this time with the mild disquiet that comes along for the ride over the criss-crossing cruxes on life’s roads. Paths run unknown from dirt to gravel to highway and back, all of them alternately alarming or beautiful, in slanting light with the right mind, with good company and a banana for the road.

Seasons change, and places change, and we change, moving and growing and rising like a creek after heavy rain – threatening to flood and overflow the banks – but often not. Like ducks in a muddy pond, we swim in and out at intervals. But so long as we keep quacking and floating, giggling our way together, I think we got it, we got it.

Je vous aime. Be well, my favorites.

– Sarah

Stronghold

Central Pennsylvania remains one of the strongholds of my heart.

Spending four years of college there – as well as countless months, hours, and minutes always visiting for long weekends and hootenannies since then – keeps it as fresh and deep inside of me as a cold, clear spring in the desert. It is always bubbling forth and is a forever embedded and nostalgic place that centers me and rekindles who I am when I go there. It is simplicity.

Be well and full of love.

– Sarah

 

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