sometimes, it is fun for me to hear from friends what words they would put with “my” photographs of “their” family.
as i think i know their stories, when you ask someone, it is amazingly beautiful what you hear.
ask people their story more. authentically. ask them and wait, with hope, for an authentic response. you won’t be disappointed. for truth & authenticity can be the most refreshing & freeing place.
so i asked fellow photographer, melissa parsons, to add a little story to their home & life here as a family.
and here is what she shared. and to follow is what i captured.
Home.
Four years ago our world and routine was shaken up a bit when a job opportunity for my husband presented itself in San Diego.
I realize, there may not be a better place to “have” to move, but it was actually a bit of a tough decision to uproot ourselves from Houston, TX – the only place that I had ever lived, leave family and friends I’d known since childhood, our church and idyllic neighborhood, to move somewhere almost completely unknown.
We were leaving Home….just the four of us.
The first time I took my kids to the beach just a few minutes away from our new house, I kind of lost my breath a little bit as I just watched them soak up the sunshine and their little eyes take in the space and the sound of the water. I still get that feeling now four years later every time I step my feet in the sand and watch them run for the waves. The expanse of the ocean envelops me and reminds me just how small our little worlds are. Our problems, our stresses….what can feel so big at the time…the water starts to take those away like the grains of sand swallowed up in the waves.
It didn’t take me long to realize that we hadn’t left Home at all. In fact, Home was wherever my three favorite people were with me, and we were richly blessed for the opportunity for that place to happen to be here. Our previously booked calendars and long list of “to-dos” had been replaced with nothing but time to explore this new, beautiful area together. And even as our calendars started to fill back up, we became more cognisent of what we filled them with. We have cherished our family time, and remind ourselves not to take this beautiful place we live for granted. I like to plan for and dream of where the future may take us. There is comfort in putting down roots, and it’s easy to get connected to a place that you love as your home, but I’ve learned over the last four years that home is not a place…home is the space we share with the people we love.
parsons 2014 from stacy bostrom on Vimeo.
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