Ever had those moments in time where you’re soaking up everything that’s happening around and wish you could just freeze time in that particular memory because you just don’t want the moment to end. You’re thinking of it. I can see the smile stretching across your face.
My favorite memory is of my family piling into our old white Subaru Justy one summer. Mom had asked me to help her plan our families cross country vacation. It really wasn’t a cross country trip but more of a northern highlights tour of Jamaica. They started the vacation with a tour of their childhood homes.
I remember the car creaking along the dusty red earth that led to country side of Maroon Town. Mom’s eyes sparkled as she told us of how she would play hide and seek with her brothers in the cane fields. I remember trying to imagine a 12 year old version of my mother, plaits bouncing around her as she kept looking around from her hiding spot.
I asked her if grandma had any photos of her back then and she shook her head. “No, we didn’t take photos back then. We couldn’t afford it.”
The irony was we didn’t have a camera for our trip. After a summer of swimming next to rafts and sitting in the Justy devouring salted roast yellow yams and listening to stories of how my parents grew up, I wished we had a camera to freeze some of my favorite moments. Like the view of my parents snuggled up on the raft watching me and my brother play or the tears of laughter etched on our faces when Papi told us jokes that we had heard a million times before. He always laughed at his jokes and his laugh made us laugh.
Yes, those are the moments I wish I could’ve saved on digital pixels or prints. It’s moments like those that compelled me to learn photography and start a photography business 13 years ago. A business that allows travel the world curating stories of places & cultures that let butterflies loose within me.
Here’s to curiosity, adventure and freezing the moments that matter, no matter how chaotic the world looks. Joy can be found in the every day moments. All we have to do is slow down long enough to soak it up.
