This week, I worked on two of my goals for the year: meeting more photographers and taking more personal photos. Because I’m both impulsive and a natural leader (that is, I just like bossing people around and I’m always the one that says “well, I’ll do it”. Also, after doing some feminist reading recently, I feel the need to own the phrase “leader” instead of putting something more gentle and unobtrusive like “outgoing”. And I just wanted a third thing in these brackets), I just threw a photo walk on one of the local photographer calendars.
Travel is a strange thing. The way I do it, it’s work. You get up early, go hard, eat exotic foods because they are exotic, stay up late and sleep in less-than-desirable conditions. And you drag your husband around on your agenda because you are the planner. It’s rewarding in quite indescribable ways. I’m a different person than I was a few years back before we started traveling constantly. Seeing the world gives you new perspectives, new ideas. It’s enlightening. And exhausting. And sometimes delightful. But also sometimes miserable. It’s a big world. I’m very lucky to have the opportunity to see some of it.
I went to school in New Orleans and lived there for a bit after graduation. Katrina hit my senior year of college and I watched the city pick itself back up. New Orleans is a deeply personal place for me, but also a place I hardly know. When you go to college in a town, you really only experience life as a college student, and half of that through a silly self-induced drunken stupor.