Things I Love (Oct. 2024)

creative stirrings, analog photos, two by two, bokeh

All the colors in the trees, for one. I am writing this while sitting in the front yard of a friend’s house where my oldest four children are having book club. The scenery is unbelievable, overlooking a hidden lake, surrounded by leaves of red, orange, green, and ochre. The reflection in the water looks like a painting. What a beautiful day.

Here are some more things I am loving right now.

Seeing the creative vision of my children taking form.
I am beyond thrilled to tell you that (drumroll, please…) Rosie has a youtube channel and has made her first ever video of a song she wrote. It is still private until we get a few little details put together, but she is really doing this thing! Over the last three months, she has written a handful of beautiful songs that I absolutely cannot wait to play on my radio while I’m driving down the highway. I feel like I am keeping the biggest secret of my life until I can share them with you.

In other family news, Paloma, who is constantly making beautiful things, has designed a journal that is going to be absolutely stunning. We are researching printing options at the moment, but this is also really happening! I will be sharing more in the weeks ahead. It makes me so happy to see my children doing things they love, watching them add their unique stamp of beauty to this world.

There is a constant stir of creative ideas in our house. This is the one constant in our lives, season by season: people are making things. Sometimes I see all the things we are not doing, all the boxes that haven’t yet been ticked off, feel some distress about it, and then I stop and look around and listen and am truly amazed at the work that these children are doing. They are drawing and building, making music, making games, making believe, creating stories, creating worlds for their younger siblings to play in. They are making food, making parties, making conversation. They are making the world a better place by living in it. It is exciting to be a part of this little commune of creative people. In some ways, it reminds me of the energy that I loved in art school, where people were getting inspired, sharing influences, wanting to talk about ideas, wanting to collaborate, getting lost in a project.

Two by two…
One of the hardest things about having a big family, for me, is trying to make sure everyone gets to do special things. We rarely all go out to eat for reasons of general chaos and astronomical bills, but my kids love to go to coffee shops (as do I) and restaurants. This month, I have rearranged my schedule to make time once a week to take a couple of my children out for a special treat. It has basically been a matter of squeezing the grocery shopping into an afternoon instead of a free morning, and I am left with breakfast time, once a week to take a couple of the kids out. This has made my heart glow with happiness. (Not an exaggeration…) I took the boys to a local coffee shop, and we played cards, then walked around downtown and took some crazy photos. We also stopped by the library on our way home, because they have about 50 board games you can check out. (Another thing I love.) It was a great morning. The following week, I took Rosie and Paloma to another coffee shop, and we sat outside under the awning for a good long while, talking and just enjoying being together. My goal is that by the end of the month, everyone will have had a special time doing something out of the ordinary with me. I may even try to squeeze a date with Randy in if we can make that happen.

The Hiding Place
I am always hesitant to read true accounts of World War 2 and survivors of the Holocaust. There is part of me that knows I should know the details of what happened, and another part that cannot handle knowing these things happened. I have been haunted by the photographs I saw in history books in middle school all my life. The stories break the heart. Many that I have heard through the years have stayed with me, though I wished sometimes I could forget them. I suppose that is how I made it to the age of 43 without having ever read Corrie Ten Boom’s autobiography, where she shares her life story of rescuing Jews during the German occupation of Holland and her imprisonment in concentration camps during the war. While it was a difficult read because of the subject matter, I can honestly say that I will look back on it again and again in my life as a reference for how one can live through the direst of circumstances and still, through the love of Christ, access love, hope and true forgiveness. I highly recommend this book.

Analog Photos:
A friend came to visit and brought his Nikon film camera with him. He put it in my hand and told me he wanted me to take the last two shots. It has been such a long time since I held an analog camera in my hand. I almost forgot about shutter speed and apertures and ISO. (I studied photography in college, and spent most of my undergrad and graduate days in the darkroom. I was also a college professor for a few short years, teaching darkroom photography.) But the thing that hit me the most was this: I have two shots. Somebody is going to pay to have these developed. I need to think carefully about how I want to spend these.

I don’t know, it seemed like a metaphor for something. So many things have become cheapened by the ease in which they are acquired. But there is something about being intentional. Setting up a shot. Taking it with confidence that it is what you want. Being selective. Not burdening yourself with more than you need or really want. Taking the time to get something right.

I don’t know exactly why, but I’m still thinking about it. The camera felt good in my hand. I don’t plan on shooting with film any time soon because A)expensive B)time consuming C)not a priority in this season. But it does make me think about wanting to make some intentional images again. Not just the normal iphone smattering. But to think about it. To sketch an image that is meaningful and beautiful with the light around me.

I guess that in itself is the metaphor I have always been chasing. Finding the beauty in what is here, now, in this moment. The way the light hits this season. Softening the focus so that the unnecessary/difficult details recede into a blur of bright sparkles in the background. I have been trying to do this all my life—through photographs, through songs, through blog posts and books and these weekly letters.

One more thing I love is this word that I just learned while trying to find out what you call those bright spots in the background of a photographic portrait: bokeh, the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in out-of-focus parts of an image, whether foreground or background or both.

Sending love today, and the reminder that the beauty is there. You may have to adjust your focus, maybe let a little more light into the lens, let the details in the background blur. There is so much of God’s goodness to see and experience. May you find it waiting for you today.

Love,

Mackenzie

Self-portrait from a homemade oatmeal-box pinhole camera c.2022.

From the Family Archive:
This photograph was actually made the summer I spent teaching art camps at Rabun-Gap Nacoochee School. It was sitting on the porch of the dorm where I stayed that I penned the first lines to Song of Sixpence. I saw a boy walking on the lawn with a bug tied to a string. (Apparently this is a thing that happens sometimes—people tie June bugs to a string and watch them fly around…???) But it looked so funny. And I scribbled down the first lines: A boy was walking his bumblebee, he tied it to a string. The sky was lit up with violet light, a bird began to sing a song of sixpence.

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