Last week, after less than a month, I lost my job at the Women's Fund of the Blue Ridge. A reminder that sometimes things don't turn out like you would like them to. This week re-ignighted a passion for photography and the place I am from that I have not felt since I was writing my senior thesis at UNCA. I went to the Appalachian Studies Association Conference at East Tennessee State University, it was wonderful and exhausting. I met so many fantastically intelligent people. I had a chance to meet Roger May and his amazing panel of photographers; Megan King, Pat Jarrett, and Kate Fowler, (If you are not following the Looking at Appalachia Project please check it out). Hearing them speak about the project I came to a glorious and terrifying realization: I want to be in Appalachia, I want to go to grad school to study Appalachian Studies, and I want to be a part of Looking at Appalachia through my own photography. Glorious because my heart quivers and quakes with purpose. Terrifying because my worried mind shivers and shakes with the logistics of making that move. Last week, after less than a month, I lost my job at the Women's Fund of the Blue Ridge. This week I didn't care so much.
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I came from a family of archivists. Not the kind that went to school for it or worked in a library, it runs in our blood to save, to collect, to file away for safe keeping. Over a hundred years of passing down artifacts of our family's history now waits in boxes in my Grandmother's garage. Over the past few months I have slowly been helping my Grandma go through these boxes of letters, diaries, photographs, and miscellaneous family items. The amount of things saved is simultaneously amazing and utterly overwhelming. For instance, why did my great-grandfather feel the need to have twelve copies of our family tree and twelve more of his brother-inlaws family tree? Mostly what we fave found is fascinating and sometimes heartbreaking; a bible that came over with the Kean's from Scotland in 1723, a medical kit, a recipe for jellied-calves foot and on the back a journal entry from the day the American Civil War ended, a dried rose placed on someones coffin in 1901, details from my great-great-grandfather Robert E. Noel's train wreck written on the back of an envelope, all of my great-grandmother's diaries, and photographs so many photographs of my family... a hundred years of holding on to where we came from. All of these pictures are of medical instruments belonging to Dr. Andrew Kean, doctor to Thomas Jefferson.
This week I started working for the Women's Fund of the Blue Ridge. This week I went to work excited and happy to be there. This week I went to work at the restaurant and it was a little bit easier. This week I went to see my friend Joy Blair play at the Down Home in Johnson City and I witnessed one of my best friends shine with courage and grace. This week I was eternally grateful for the strong women in my life. This week I went to work on Valentines Day. This week I was humbled by the kindness of others. This week I was incredibly tired. This week I was everything all at once. This week rolled right into the next... Below you can hear my amazing friend sing her song "Half a Man" and see pictures from her show. There is a restful stillness in the morning light. Even on the days when the loudest voice in my head is me, reminding myself "the sum of your tips is not equal to the the sum of your worth." The moments of morning light carry through out my day when I go with Suzanne to interview and photograph farmers, because when I hear people talk with great passion about local food and their love for the land and these mountains, I have faith in the world again. I carry the lightness of the morning till the evening light falls her tresses all warm on my shoulders and I remember that the service industry is not forever, and my lease ends in July, and come August all roads are moonlit and unknown. |
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