You ever believed everything was gonna be okay and then, by the grace, it was?
43 years before I sauntered about the Eiffel Tower, it was my mother and her high school boyfriend who, filled with their teenage excitement and wonder, glared up at the 1,000 feet tall structure only to discover something quite odd: it was leaning.
The nearly century-old monument to the Parisian people was, according to my mother’s recollection, not doing too well in the spring of 1980.
“I hope it ain’t still leanin’ when y’all get there,” she said.
But much to my mother’s delight and my relief, when Ameerah and I found our way to it on March 23, it stood quite proudly, adorned with 4 more decades to its frame and a stately demeanor against the overcast Paris sky. It was a pleasant surprise.
This series of photos is a compilation of moments that were born out of the same optimistic faith that my mother’s statement encapsulates: to hope things turn out the way you’d like, but to also choose joy in spite of what actually happens. I boarded my plane to Budapest freshly laid off and facing unemployment in a spiraling economy. Yet despite everything going on around me, as I waited to board my plane, I made the active decision to have the time of my life. In spite of. Anyway.
And did.
Cheers to faith, to choice, to life, to adventure, to love, to rest, to flow, to friends, to clarity, to joy, and to pleasant surprises.
Cheers to Granny (1932-2023), for being the original globetrotter girly and inspiring us all to go and see.
May I present to you the very first photo essay on W2D. I hope you enjoy. All photos by me, unless otherwise noted.
I would like to thank the following people for their invaluable contributions to this piece, for without them these photos would simply not exist.
To the Bryson brothers, Jared and Kevin, for their generous and professional advice in my pursuit of a point and shoot film camera.
To Brynn K. Schneberger for sending me the very Craigslist posting for the camera that I now own.
To Zachary C. Freeman for being the most kind human being alive and picking up the camera from the Craigslist seller in a parking lot in Columbia, SC on like zero notice.
To Ameerah N. de Chabert for capturing me in the most kind of ways, exuding her creativity in everything she does, and inspiring me daily for nearly a decade and a half.
