“Stacey…. I accidentally almost kidnapped someone else’s kid in the grocery store….”
That’s how our conversations normally start out.
28 years ago I sat in a lunchroom of a new school and met my best friend of my childhood.
We are as opposite as they come. We were opposite then and we continue to live very different lives. And to this day… I have no idea why God brought her to me and me to her.
But when she randomly sends a text…really wanting pictures. It’s been 15 years since she got married.
I, being me, buy a ticket three hours later and in a couple weeks I am on a plane to the northwest valley.
And I know what chaos that ensues when I arrive to the airport… because as soon as I sit down in her car I buckle up and try not to get car sick. Her driving is like nothing I have ever experienced. Though it doesn’t surprise me. And me, being me, and us being us… tell her exactly what I think of her driving. She laughs. “But you still love me because I’m like nobody else you know!!” She’s so right.
She let me capture her and her family. Her wild brood of boys… and her. And when I was editing these photos, I got to the ones of all the boys together, and I got a little teary. Really teary actually. Because they are hers. They have bits and pieces of her personality. I see her in them. And I would do anything for them. Even though I hardly ever see them…simply because they are hers.
And her sweet husband… I made him smile. WE made him smile. And that meant a lot to me. And I got to capture them together, something that means the world to me as well.
We roamed the countryside for a couple of days. Me holding on for dear life around all the corners of the quaint farms. It’s a place I adore and keep coming back to because I love to just see it. (I don’t often go back to places I’ve already seen.) There are fields of flowers, and hazelnut groves (I can’t remember their real name…), and apples and pumpkins and vineyards, too many to count. I drank wine. I ate great food and had hot coffee. I couldn’t have asked for more.
And now you know… that wherever she goes, or I go. We find each other. It may be 10 years in-between visits, but that’s ok. Childhood best friends are forever.
