A few days wandering between life and death, beauty and tragedy, past and present. The irony of travel: sometimes the more there is to reflect on, the less time there is to reflect.
Day 10 - Playing Dress Up
Lin bought this outfit on TaoBao for $5 so we could do a photoshoot with her and her sister at the local temple…lol.
Day 9 - Furry Friends
Oh, the joy our furry friends bring us.
Dream House in Wuxing Hua Ji
Spent the afternoon exploring the ancient village of Wuxing Huaji in Lishui. The entire village has been transformed into a hotel, and it was really inspiring to see. It’s a dream of mine and Lin’s to one day own a small traditional home in a Chinese village- spending time immersed in slower practices of life.
Making Qingtuang
“Qingtuan is a traditional Chinese delicacy from the Jiangnan region. Associated with the spring season and the Qingming Festival, these chewy, jade-colored treats are made by mixing glutinous rice flour with fresh mugwort or barley grass juice.” -Google
In other words; sounds very cool, tastes…not so good. But fun to make, nonetheless.
3rd Wheeling
Just another day as the third wheel in Shanghai…
Perfect Days
This is the first person I noticed in Shanghai reading something on paper. I felt obligated to document the sighting.
Day 5 - Shanghai
Spent the evening exploring Shanghai nightlife as the fourth wheel. Not much to write tonight, just wanted to continue uploading photos from my month spent in China. This is day 5, 25 more days of images to go :)
Day 3 & 4 - Shanghai
For complicated reasons, Lin and I decided to visit her family in China just 10 days before our flight. The only person in her family who knew we were coming was her sister and best friend, Ping. I completely blew the reunion photo of Lin and Ping, but you get the idea. (note to self: don’t shoot a seven year reunion photo on a rangefinder with a 1.4 lens)
From there, we ate lunch at a shopping mall and then surprised Ping with a stocking full of random American snacks, knickknacks and beauty products (this is a tradition anytime we visit China).
Shortly after that, we headed to the restaurant to surprise the rest of her family. We pulled it off. I still can’t believe it had been seven years…but that’s a whole other post I’ll save for the future. Please God never let that happen again.
The next day, Ping, Lin and I explored Jing’an Temple and rode bikes around the city. The images below pretty much sum it up. Theres even a photo of me in there ;) LOTS more photos from this trip coming soon.
Day 2 - Shanghai
Day two in any country over a 10-hour flight away tends to consist of disorientation, caffeine, and long photo walks.
The day’s adventures looked like: acclimating to our new apartment, wildly overpriced coffee, feeding cats, exploring markets, and walking 20,000 steps. Needless to say, I was exhausted by the end of the day, and slept like a dog.
The Light That Holds Us
I returned today from two different retreats held on consecutive days. One focused on spiritual practices for anxiety and the other on grief. I probably won’t do that combination again.
The retreats themselves were meaningful, but I entered already feeling a bit emotionally burned out and then spent two days surrounded by a talkative group carrying some very heavy things. Somewhere on day two, I realized what I probably needed wasn’t more reflection, conversation, or processing.
I think I needed more silence. Solitude. Less input.
Oh well. Here we are.
(Random side note: I was the only male attendee among 30 people, most of whom were over 60 years old. Unfortunately, I don’t have a group picture…though I wish I did.)
Oddly enough, the moment that stayed with me most from the retreats had very little to do with anxiety or grief directly. An elderly woman named Pat and I ended up talking about the spaces in our homes that bring us the most peace. She started describing the role of light in her favorite room. Morning light, specifically. The way it enters. The feeling of it. The comfort. She went on and on and I was with her every step of the way.
At some point, in the middle of two emotionally dense days, two strangers found a surprising amount of joy talking about light.
Not “filmmaking light.” Just the ordinary kind.
The kind of light that quietly shifts the feeling of an entire room. The kind that turns a kitchen into a sanctuary for fifteen minutes before work. The kind that accompanies grief at 6am, joy around a dinner table, loneliness in the middle of winter, or peace on an ordinary afternoon when nothing remarkable is happening at all.
I realized afterward that I’d never really had a conversation with a stranger centered entirely around light before, which struck me as strange because light plays such a massive role in our emotional lives. It is present in some of our most peaceful moments and some of our most sorrowful ones. It fills hospital rooms, childhood bedrooms, churches, kitchens, funeral homes, early mornings after loss, and evenings where everything feels okay for a little while.
Light becomes the canvas beneath so much of being human, yet we rarely talk about it. At least I don’t. And definitely not with non-filmmakers.
We talk about sadness, joy, anxiety, memories. But rarely the light that held those moments.
I left wondering if maybe part of why our conversation felt so unexpectedly joyful was because appreciation itself can be healing. Not solving. Not fixing. Just noticing. Maybe wonder is underrated. Maybe pausing long enough to notice something as ordinary as light softens us a little. Maybe it reminds us there is beauty accompanying our lives in ways we almost never acknowledge.
I don’t know.
But even in a retreat centered around grief, two people eventually found themselves orienting toward light.
Maybe we all do.
I’m exhausted after these past couple of days, but I realized I had a few photos from the other day of light moving through my living room.
Seemed fitting.
Enjoy.
Sedona Film Fest
Spent a week in Sedona for the premiere of my film, “A Sacred Pause.” It’s been two years in the making, and to premiere it just 10 miles from where we filmed was very meaningful. Bonus: we won best short documentary at the festival.
Yussef Dayes
Been listening to Yussef Dayes a lot recently. The man plays with such passion and I find it infectious, and deeply inspiring: Yussef Dayes X Alfa Mist - Love Is The Message
A Dog's Life
Pizza knows how to pick a good spot.
IVF - Day In The Life
More China pictures coming soon, but in the meantime, here is one short day in the life of an IVF treatment. It’s not fun. But photography and breakfast sandwiches are a great way to cope with the discomfort. If your looking at these images and recognize the room with the dvd player, I hope it gives you a laugh. Oh I also had stitches in my eyelid due to a cyst being removed. Enjoy!
Day 1 - Shanghai
Due to a random string of events, Lin and I find ourselves in Shanghai for a month.
Dumpling Breakfast
Whenever there is backlit steam, I always gotta break out the camera :)
Morning Light
A nice little light show before breakfast.
Morning Routines
If there was a such thing as a “perfect writing routine”…it would involve the 7am sun pouring through my living room window, a hot cup of coffee, a La Croix, and a 2 hour stretch devoted to nothing but writing…
..and around 9am, Lin would appear with her laptop, patiently indulging me as I photographed her…appreciating both her beauty and the challenge of working with hard front light without letting my own shadow interrupt it.
When Light Keeps You Warm
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