Last Saturday I had the real privilege of photographing the wedding of these two incredible women, Allie and Lynn.  Here is a tiny preview of the wedding photographs. 

 Do not speak: fold all the unknowns onto the tip of your tongue and press your lips to the corners of their mouth; pray they speak in tongues. Make two piles: label one work worth looking at and the other chaos, leave the first pile empty and dismember yourself; place all the parts of yourself in the pile called chaos. Return to your hollows: forget how to say your own name and curse at the sky for not showing you the stars; it is so much harder to find North without them. 

Here in my grandparents house is the light from two of my most beloved windows. In the morning there is the window in Margaret and Cary's bedroom. Behind the white cotton curtains is that Eastern light rising over the road home, back to the place that built me, back to my beginnings, back to the comfort of knowing how the light falls in the corners of a room. Don't you know I feel that firelight in my bones? I'll come back... but not yet. In the evening there is the big window in the stairway. Over the farm is that Western light falling through the arches and over all the roads I say I will travel, onward to make the work I want to be making, onward to adventure, onward into the utter discomfort of the unknown. Don't I know that you are tired hearing me talk about this? I know the road is dark, I am going... I have to go. In the afternoon is the quiet moment between the rise and fall of these two lights, between the "this is what you could be doing" and the "this what you should be doing", between the "this what you told everyone you would do" and the "this is what you have actually done". Don't you know I have nearly learned to tell the time of day by the sun's position in the sky? I've got time, I am here... I am fine.   

Welcome home, how does that feel? to be socked straight in the heart?  Turns out welcome home ain't all welcome. Still every time there is warmth of this; the view of the sorghum molasses boil from the hill above Julie's garden, the sound of fiddle tunes, and knowing that so many people I love are under that tin roof. Welcome home.


To see pictures of the process of making sorghum molasses click here

Southeast Kentucky: Knock-kneed and bug-bit, since I arrived at Musick Mountain Farm I've been asking myself what the hell did you get yourself into? And didn't you know farming was fucking hard?!  I jumped feet first into long days of 90 degree heat and dry dirt. I still haven't finished weeding that damn sweet potato patch. Right into late night coyotes coming a little too close and a copperhead even closer. I am not as alone out here as I believed. Right into family histories at the dinner table with Janice and helping her bury her cat when the dishes were cleared. I was really never much for small talk anyway. Feet first into southeast Kentucky knock-kneed and my neck crooked back from staring too long at the stars. I am stronger than I've ever been.

Below I have included a slideshow of images from life on the farm.

Scenes from loving and leaving Boone. These are the ties that bind.  

Thoughts on visiting Margaret Miller in Meat Camp every First and Third Friday for the past Two Years. 

This is the House your Father built.
On the same road where your grandmother sowed seeds to the pattern of the stars; this is the land where your father planted in the Earth, not on the Moon.
Those are the hooks in the fireplace where your mother hung her cast iron cooking pot, this is the kitchen where she fed eleven little mouths. 
There is the photograph of your oldest brother Marvin.
In the hallway where your mother was told her eldest son would not be coming home from that hospital in Statesville; these are the walls that heard her heart break. 
Here are the stories you give me.
On the first and third Friday of every month; these are the rooms where you show me the quilts your mother made, the smooth rocks you carried back from that beach in Canada, and that picture of you with your best boyfriend. 
This is the House your Father built.
On the same road where your grandmother planted hens and chicks; these are the floors that remember your footsteps when your eyes don't see too well anymore.
Here is the porch where I tell you goodbye and you tell me you love me; this is the promise I make to myself to comeback to see you again.

"Forever taking pictures of mountains" will be carved into the rock above my head when I am laid to rest. I can't help that I am always remembering the structure of my backbone...  
  Last weekend in Harlan, Kentucky I gathered with folks whose backbone has the same structure as mine at the It's Good to be Young in the Mountains conference to discuss how to stay in Appalachia, and not only how to stay, but to thrive in Appalachia. Last weekend I had the energy of leaving Boone, the energy of being around other passionate young people. Last weekend it felt good to be young in the mountains. Surrounded by so many different kinds of mountain builders it was hard not to hold a vision of tomorrow. 
  However, as a young black man attending the conference pointed out during the closing of the conference, that vision is not complete and we still have a great deal of work to do before we see tomorrow. Tomorrow cannot continue to be a vision of predominately white people, no matter how well-intentioned we are. Because tomorrow looks like understanding that Appalachia is not just in the hills and the hollars, Appalachia is Charleston, Knoxville, Huntsville, and Pittsburgh. And tomorrow? tomorrow looks like momentum... 
  Momentum looks like the drive home from Harlan and a 20 minute conversation with Sam at a gas pump in Virginia about how we can love Appalachia actively and how not to just accept the parts that need to change. But momentum feels like your heart in your throat when a girl says that now she is going to write a poem about how the fire is not dead here.