Click Magazine Feature Spread

So honored to have been asked to write and share images for this beautiful magazine feature. 

Still Waters: The journey begins once you stand still

My River Stories are such a huge part of my heart and soul, and anytime I can share about my passion with the world, I am just so grateful. 

Spring is right around the corner, and I cannot wait to return to the waters. 

I also have a super exciting River Story announcement just around the corner, so this all feels so beautifully, and magically, right. 





Photo Albums and Being Forgotten / Part 1

I could smell her morning breath in one corner of the master bedroom and I swear she was standing two inches from my left shoulder. I am sure of it. I was looking at a tribal mask hanging on the wall and then out of nowhere, breath and perfume and soup on the stove simmering. Dentures in a glass on the nightstand. The radio playing, and someone messing with the antenna. All at once none of it was dead. Even though all of it was. Collecting flies like spoiled fruit left out and forgotten after an incredible summer picnic.

I sort of think this estate sale was so much more profound than all of the others I have been to because of the house itself. I can say with certainty I have never been in such a giant, and expensive, house in my entire life. These were the kinds of homes I watched passing outside car windows as a child, dreaming of the princess children living inside, their ponies wearing matching tiaras. These were the homes where the moms made muffins while wearing aprons that had been ironed by the maid a few hours before. The children with manicured lawns were never forced to spend their weekends in church basements listening to AA meetings, cigarette smoke so thick and hot their nostrils burning with each inhale, even the next day. In these homes promises were kept and nobody wore hand-me-downs and there were no real problems like the ones I had inherited. I longed to be part of that club; some nights I can still feel the ache rise up in my chest.  

Certainly millionaires, and their families don't die. And if they do, they don't leave the door open for strangers to just come stomping through without first removing their shoes. 

This whole experience baffled me. How this mansion, this massive symbol of success and wealth and power, was now completely deflated. Like that time I was an intern at Walt Disney World and I saw Mickey Mouse with his head off for the first time; a sweaty, pimply man with adult braces on his teeth, huffing and puffing on his way to lunch break. As I wandered through this sale today, I wanted so badly to have the illusion of safety and perfection back. I swear to God I kept looking for the pony stable in the backyard. 

Instead I found a bottle of half used shampoo sitting on the bathroom sink, on sale for .25. It was just too much to comprehend. The vulnerable bones of a once mighty warrior, left to be plucked clean by the shivering beaks of curious, peasant birds.  

I sat on the floor of their library and spent an hour flipping through the husband’s personal photo albums. He was a world traveler and chronicled every single trip meticulously. Every image was captured so beautifully on film, and each book was only .50 each. At first I started to pile them all, claiming them as my own: India, China, Alaska, The Caribbean… My heart sang and in my mind I had a library some day filled top to bottom with other people’s vacation albums. It was so real. But then Thomas made a comment alluding to how ridiculous this calling was, and all at once I felt like one of those people on the hoarder’s TV show. Hugging stranger’s memories to my chest, gripping and clinging with all of my might while the garbage truck beep, beep, beeps it's reverse warning, backing in to take it all away.

I didn’t buy a single one. And I regret it profoundly. But I don’t think it’s the vision of my curated collection that is truly wrecking me. I think it’s because I want to buy them all, and then find his, now adult, children, and bang on their doors at the most inappropriate hours (rain pouring down my hair and face would make it so much better) and scream at them:

“WHY WOULD YOU SELL THESE FOR TWO QUARTERS? HOW COULD YOU HAVE NO ATTACHMENT TO THESE STORIES AND THESE WORDS? HOW COULD YOU JUST GIVE THEM AWAY? I need to understand why. I need to understand how.”

Then his children would hug me so tight, and rip the books from my hands and declare, “Oh my God! Thank you! I didn’t realize these were left behind!”

It would all just be a silly misunderstanding. 

And then I begin to think about how, if this one house had all of these one-of-a-kind gorgeous film images destined for the garbage pile, how many other homes have the same? And now, as I sit here, I am feverishly trying to figure out a way to be the rescuer of forgotten photos. I want to preserve it all, somehow, someway, so that none of it ever has to say goodbye.

You stood there, and you captured that, and that matters. And I don't want that to ever not matter. 

Because being forgotten is not my biggest fear; it’s my most distinct memory. It's my everyday reality. And while I have mountains of gratitude for the adoption papers that saved me, I think part of me will never ever get over how it feels to, all at once, no longer matter. I remember my Father, and I remember missing him while knowing I was not really missed at all. And I want with all of my might to make sure that never happens to anyone else, ever.

I am not a photographer because I love pictures. I am a photographer because I am completely terrified of loss. And witnessing these images about to get thrown into an incinerator has to be the worst fucking reality ever. You can't go backwards. Once something is gone, it can't be ungone.

He spent so much time writing out, in his very best handwriting, the dates, locations, people, feelings beside each capture. And when there wasn’t enough space in the margins, he'd fill journal pages and staple them to the backs. Nobody does that for fun. He didn't want to be forgotten, either. 

I didn’t buy one single album. I didn’t even steal one print and tuck it in my bag. But tonight I wish so hard that I bought them all so that I could write so many books all based on his marvelous adventures. Penguins sliding down icebergs on their fat white bellies, Mongolian children with wind burned foreheads; all of it, one page at a time. And people would see his images and fall in love, too, because they really are just that remarkable. And the family that forgot him would feel guilty and wish they’d known what they had when they had it. And then I’d go to his grave and tell him about how he doesn’t need to worry anymore, all of it wasn’t wasted. I’d read him paragraphs and pause after the parts about him being unconditionally beloved. I’d place my cheek close to the grass near his stone, and promise him that simply by writing about something, by having it digested by even just one single person, it then becomes immortal.

Words, once read, never die.



(I’m going back tomorrow to get the photo albums.)

BBQ Love

Sometimes when you're out for BBQ with beloved friends, you kidnap one and run across the street to the church parking lot with you camera, because... her. 



4:30am on February 9th

Last night I had a dream that I was trying out for a high school cheerleading team. It wasn't the small town high school I graduated from, though. This was a full-blown Texas-style school with a football stadium the size of the neighborhood I grew up in. 

In the dream, in order to try out for the team after school, you had to wear their uniform all day so they could see how it looked on you. The current team members would walk around and take notes on clipboards on things like, "Did she smile enough in the uniform?" "Do her boobs fill up the top near the dart seams?" "How many boys turned their heads when she walked by?"

At one point I stood in an empty girls' bathroom, staring at myself in a full length mirror, tugging at the back of the pleated skirt, praying for some sweat pants and a hoodie. 

I made the team. 

And then fell apart, sobbing, behind the bleachers, because I only tried out because I really wanted to dance every single day, but I had no use for the cruel and exclusive club I had just been granted access to. It felt good to be accepted, and get a stamp of approval, but actually no it didn't and all I really wanted to do is starfish in the sunshine on the school sidewalk, my bellybutton plugged into the sky, poems written on palms. 

It's 4:30am and I'm sitting on the couch just like damn. Damn. How incredible to be granted this gift, this dream of so much clarity, on the eve of my retreat ending. The new moon. 

I'm going to eventually find the words to articulate the magic that this weekend was, or maybe not because that's impossible, but for now, I just need to share something about my experience leading the retreat and holding the space. 

Often when we hear of people who have been damaged from social hierarchies, it's because they were consistently, and often times brutally, rejected. In some way, and in some ungraceful fashion, they were given the message that they were not good enough to go to the parties, or get on the varsity team, or make boys turn their heads. And I am aware of how fucked up this is about to sound, but it's my truth and it's revealing itself, and so it counts. The truth is, that has never been my story. Sure there were profound moments of pain and judgement, but I always had a saved seat at the popular table.  My story is that once I got there, I'd realize it was not at all what I was looking for, and because I didn't know what else to do, I'd call them on their shit and fuck it all up and make people uncomfortable, and angry. I made enemies by getting to the "top" and then being like, "You're all assholes."  I kind of still do this. So no, I wasn't the nerd in the corner being made fun of, but I ended up alone, hated, and never belonging, either way.

In college I was so desperate for sisterhood that I joined a sorority. I got into them all during rush week and chose the one that I thought was the "best." The first week I was voted into a leadership position and thought this was going to finally be my jam until they poured a giant bucket of ice cream sprinkles onto the carpet and told us to separate them by color. I went to the college co-op that night and bought a journal. Finally, during the second semester, somewhere between the president declaring we weren't allowed to eat all day before rush events for fear of food being stuck in our teeth, and witnessing someone with cerebral palsy being denied access to a party because of her electric wheelchair, I snapped. I wrote a letter to headquarters, carefully listing each and every thing I had documented in my diary, and how and why I believed it was so horribly, terribly, wrong. The girls all hated me for it, and I crossed the street on my way to English class to avoid the house from then on. 

I could tell a hundred more stories just like this. Where I sign up for a thing that is very clear about what it is, and then defiantly and totally ungracefully tell them how harmful they are, and then cry for weeks wondering why everyone hates me. 

I didn't really see this until this morning. 

I started to do the very same thing with the photography community, in fact. I came in about 6 years ago and somehow ended up being invited to sit at the popular table. I got to be with the cool kids, and speak at the cool things. They stamped my hand and told me I had made it. Sounds awesome, right? Except, once again, the moment I jumped into that pool, I couldn't get out fast enough.

This time, though, by some miracle, instead of filling blank pages with lists of what they were doing to harm others, so I could later slam them over the head with it, I filled it with what I was missing in my own heart and ways I could maybe find it. 

Just like in my dream last night, I just wanted to dance, and the big problem wasn't the cheerleading squad (well, maybe, but...) it was (also) me thinking I needed the cheerleading squad in order to dance. If you want to dance, Michelle, just fucking dance. 

But here's the thing. Community is everything and sisterhood sustains me. And in the words of Madonna, eventually I realized, "I'm tired of dancing here all by myself." 

And so River Retreats were born. 

Again, I'm not going to even try to write about this weekend just yet, but after that dream and this realization, I just have to say, it's worth it. Finding the people who love you right up close and completely, is so worth it. Breaking the cycles that prevent us from being fully alive (although brutal) is definitely worth it, too. And I keep crying to the point of puffy eyes because I don't have to tug at the back of my skirt anymore, wishing. 

And my brain keeps trying to comb through the last 72 hours, like a mother searching for lice, to pick out the mistakes I made, and beat myself up for them. But I refuse. Not this. 

I woke up to the impatient chirping of a drained smoke detector over my bed. And I just laid there at first staring up at it like, "Oh fire alarm. I know how you feel, stuck all day and night on guard for a catastrophe that never actually happens. Screaming out when you think things are dangerous. But I really wanted to see how this dream ended. I really wanted to see what happens. UGH." 

But then after grouchily getting a drink of water and a bite of muffin, and tucking Thomas' feet back into the blankets, I got a text on my phone from one of the retreat sisters and it all just kind of lifted. A heaviness, finally, at last, was gone. 

I know exactly how it ends. And damn am I grateful.