Photos & Words: Years ago // A beach somewhere

When I was a child, somebody put a big, blue plastic camera in my grubby hands. I got older and the cameras got fancier and I “studied” photography in high school then college and I took a LOT of photos. So now I’m going to post my photos in no particular order with stories that may or may not have something to do with what’s in them – my new experiment in creative confidence.



There’s a story my grandpa told about my grandma. Actually, there were a lot of stories and I wish I was better at remembering them all but this one stuck.
.
Back in the days when men would ask women to accompany them to dances, my future grandparents were going to a dance together. I think they had just begun dating and it was either traditional for a man to give his date a corsage to wear or that was a special thing…I’m not sure. My grandpa, being my grandpa, decided to level up. Instead of a corsage, he sent my grandma an entire string of flowers to wear around her neck.
.
When the night arrived, he went to pick up his future wife.
.
He was excited.
.
Then she came to the door without the flowers around her neck. She only had a single flower on her wrist. For a moment he thought something had gone wrong.
.
But standing in the door, he noticed the other girls wandering around getting ready for the night. He saw that a few of them had flowers similar to the ones he’d sent.
.
My grandmother had taken apart the beautiful, special string of flowers and given one to each girl that hadn’t received a corsage.
.
Because everyone should get to feel beautiful and special.
.
One of my favorite stories about two of my favorite people. (Come back later and I’ll tell you the one about the weaving loom.)
.
📷  This photo is not by me. It’s by my cousin Erin. I don’t know the details but I assume it’s from a trip we took to visit my grandparent during one of their winters in Ft. Lauderdale. I like that grandma and I have matching hairstyles.