Newton: On Foot in the Suburbs

On the second day of my end-of-summer ultra-mini vacation, I choose to head in the opposite direction of the city, picking out a part of the outlying suburbs that we have certainly driven past on our way to dinner or errands, but that I have never really explored by foot. I head out at dawn, taking the Green Line outbound with the nightshifters departing work in the Longwood Medical Area, and get off in Newton Centre for a ramble around Crystal Lake, in the nearby Newton Cemetery, and then toward the Newton Highlands. It occurs to me that strolling around a cemetery at daybreak mid-week is probably not a sane person’s idea of typical vacation activity, but also that I can’t be the only one who enjoys visiting cemeteries for their peaceful, stately atmosphere and thoughtfully cultivated garden landscapes. We certainly have visited our share of beautiful cemeteries here in the New England (Peacham, Cabot Plains, and Mt. Auburn come to mind), and they are especially wonderful in October when their grounds are carpeted in fallen leaves and autumnal hues. At the end of my morning walk, I pick out a box of sweet and savory croissants at Lakon Paris Patisserie before returning home. A few more important weeks at the medical center, and we will be heading into our first fall foliage season with baby in tow. More to come, soon.

Boston: Exploring Revere and Belle Isle

Something I’ve been increasingly grappling with in the past few months is the constant work of maintaining some sense of self, some grasp on the things that bring me individual generativity and joy, which extend beyond my relational roles at home and in the workplace. If I’m being honest, this has been a struggle for me ever since we left the place I consider my second home (Baltimore) and moved up to Boston, all the more accentuated by the whirlwind of this past year and the experience of new fatherhood. I love Jordan. He’s ridiculously cute. It’s been indescribably gratifying watching him grow into his wonderful, outsized personality (and big ol’ skull) and his ever-expanding relationship with the world around him. I wouldn’t trade him for anything in the world (despite constant jokes about bringing him back to the baby store).

Nevertheless, I have watched so many other joys fall to the wayside, in the face of the constant entropy of maintaining a household, the neverending fatigue of balancing competing responsibilities with never-enough time. I haven’t written poetry in a year. I started writing a novella just before Jordan’s birth, but haven’t made it past an outline and a first chapter. I’ve been finding it hard to explore the world - or even the city around me - with the same sense of freedom, wondrous connection, and creative possibility that were so integral to my earlier identity. Sure, I’ve taken little walks, a few hours away from the house during my off-service time, but even during these rare moments of privacy, it’s hard not to feel guilty - like I could or should be spending this precious time with my rapidly-growing -up kiddo. It has felt nothing like the ranging, introspective walks I constantly took during my stints in Guadalajara and New York City, around Baltimore, Maryland, and throughout the wildlands of the West. Those hours and days, as important as anything I ever invested into my studies and profession, were where I formed my identity, my awe and gratitude to the natural and human communities around me, and my love of discovering and giving expression to beauty in everyday life (often through the lens of a camera). It strikes me that if I want to be able to share these feelings and experiences with my little one over the coming years, I will have to find some way to maintain my core, to give myself space for self-compassion and self-discovery even as my world becomes more complex and the demands on my energy grow. I won’t pretend to know the path forward. I’m still working on finding it - for now, putting one foot ahead of the next and trusting myself, trusting that I’ll know how to walk the path when I find it.

To that end, this week, in the midst of another busy academic year, I found myself with a little two-day mini-vacation wedged between various commitments of some importance. Though such a short time would ordinarily feel neither here nor there in terms of travel plans or true leisure, I determined to treat this as a real vacation - out-of-office message, clearing both inbox and calendar ahead of time, making solo plans, and so forth. On the first day of my mid-week break, I take a day trip to East Boston, which I’ve never really explored in the past. I ride to the end of the Blue Line and get off at Revere Beach; it’s an absolutely perfect day at the tail end of summer - bluebird skies, crashing surf, wind in my hair. My spirits are totally buoyed as I step out of station, across the shore drive, and onto a shining expanse of shifting sands. Walking along the beach, I collect a pair of enormous quahog shells to bring home to show Jordan. After some time in the sun, I hop back on the T and ride a few stops back to East Boston to explore the side streets near the Belle Isle Marsh Reservation. Eastie is a beautiful neighborhood in the same way that Baltimore was beautiful: vibrant with immigrant culture and cuisine, stunning to walk on a fine-weather day, and (importantly) gritty enough to hold your interest. Walking across Belle Isle Inlet, I jaywalk Saratoga Street to shoot long telephoto comps across the marsh toward the houses of Revere, and out across the inlet toward Boston’s airport, harbor, and skyline. To top it all off, I treat myself to what others have told me is a true Bostonian rite of passage - the legendary lobster roll at Belle Isle Seafood, a massive heaping pile of claw and tailmeat, lightly dressed and served cold on a grilled bun, and eaten in the parking lot under glorious skies while watching boats dock at the marina and planes land and take off across the water. After lunch, I stroll back toward Orient Heights along Bayswater Street, shooting city and water views as I go. I’m back in Brookline in the late afternoon, concluding an absolutely fantastic outing, and one of my happiest days in quite a long time.

Massachusetts: Summer Child

The warmer months are here. After a crescendo of heat followed by interminable weeks of afternoon downpours, the weather reaches a pleasant lull in the mid-summer, with nice crisp mornings and brilliant, sultry afternoons in the city. We take advantage of this window, and of a hiking backpack gifted by one of my work colleagues, to bring baby Jordan outside for a series of weekend summer walks in the urban woods near our home (in between weeknight sunset strolls along the Muddy River between dinner and bathtime). It’s been a lovely experience to introduce my kiddo to things that I had so little of during my own childhood: forests filled with birdsong, beautiful lakes and streams, fauna and flora that change with the seasons. Jordan, for his part, seems to enjoy these brief outings as much as an infant possibly could; he looks out at this beautiful verdant world, unfazed. If I had to guess what he feels from his expression alone, I would say there’s occasional wonder, but mostly bemused acceptance (perhaps bordering on boredom and growing irritation that we are so far away from his crib for his next nap).

Time is passing quickly now - accelerating, even. In a flash, seven months of Jordan’s life have gone by. In my work life, yet another academic year has rolled through and turned over. In my home life, gone already is the colicky newborn with his clinically indeterminate upper lip tie and unisex hospital beanie, replaced by a bouncing sack of energy that can’t seem to stop rolling, laughing at random words (“do you want a seastack?!”), making faces at new foods, and spinning counterclockwise in circles on the floor. In moments of impermanence like this, I am all the more grateful to be a photographer because (as I have written before) I often, involuntarily, connect image-making to meaning-making. if it weren’t for photography, I might not have noticed and appreciated what is rapidly passing me by.

As we hurtle toward the fall, I feel again that growing urge to do more, to see more, and to make more memories through my life experiences - to make my time count for as much as it can. It’s a familiar feeling, but I feel it this year more than all the others before. Becoming a parent has sharpened this sensation in my body- a powerful feeling that I identify less as memento mori (with its connotations of desperation and finality), and more an expansive, peaceful sense of connection between my transient self and the wider world. A desire to maximally love, be loved, and give something to the future. I am reminded of a few words that Elie Wiesel once shared, in an essay addressing why he writes: “Not to transmit an experience is to betray it.” I guess, then, that this constitutes my silent prayer on the page - to let my art, my work, and my relationships be the transmission of my experience.

———

June 25, 2023: A brief morning amble in the Allandale Woods with Jane, Jordan, and my dad. We get a bit lost in the forest’s byzantine tangle of tiny footpaths and wind up walking back to the car along the VFW Parkway.

July 30, 2023: A stroll around Jamaica Pond and Wards Pond in the early morning. Jordan is more stable in the backpack now, his feet easily reaching the bottom footrest. We take a family portrait as Jordan chews on the pondside scenery.

August 6, 2023: An early morning walk through the woods between Willow Pond and Wards Pond. Bright orange jewelweeds (touch-me-nots) are in bloom, spangling the undergrowth with bursts of color. Even with baby on my back, I manage to sneak in some woodland compositions.

August 20, 2023: A morning photoshoot at Larz Anderson Park.

August 29, 2023: Heading out on my own to work up some compositions I’ve seen on my daily jogs along the Muddy River.

September 2, 2023: A family outing along the west side of Hammond Pond in Chestnut Hill. I test out my new tripod-adapted reflector kit and take gorgeous backlit outdoor portraits of Jane and baby.

September 3, 2023: A mid-day shoot at the Charles River Reservation in Allston.

September 17, 2023: A final set of family portraits during a Sunday morning stroll among the conifers and larches of the Arnold Arboretum, before the fall season arrives in earnest.