This Little Thing We Do

Dear Joy,

Your letter about friendships was beautiful. It was a good reminder that some friendships go pop! and there they are, while others grow slowly, through shared experiences and tears and lots and lots of iced coffees. Also, thanks for your honesty about the ups and downs of friendship. I firmly believe that good friends annoy the heck out of each other, are honest about it, and move right along.

I’ve got a friendship of my own that I’m working on, in a sort of unusual way. You see, I have this friend, who also happens to be my husband. His name is Marty. We are very (very) different, and as you well know, friendship with someone who is very (very) different than yourself can be… challenging. Yes, yes. Challenging. (You’re married, so you know the nuances.)

In light of these challenges that we face, as friends and as a couple working hard to stay married ‘till death do us part, we’ve learned that we have to find things, something, anything, to do together. When he’s tinkering in the garage, and I’m curled up with a book, there’s not much friendship going on. Also crucial: these “shared experiences” need to be fun. Side-by-side floor mopping only gets you so far.

Enter wedding photography.

We started this baby business of ours shortly after we got married. Marty loved the technicalities of how camera gear worked, and I loved taking beautiful pictures. Now that we have kids, it’s harder to find the time (and babysitters) for all-day wedding shoots, but it’s so very worth it. 

I’ve got hundreds of stories I could tell you about wedding photography with Marty. For example, the guy is an Eagle Scout. Do you have any idea how handy it is to have an Eagle Scout with you when you’re photographing a wedding? Anything breaks, and boom, he does this whoosh whoosh ninja thing and fixes it, with electrical tape or a screwdriver that he pulls out of nowhere. At least once during a wedding day, I’ll grab his camera, shove mine into his hands, say, “Fix this please!” and run off to catch up with the bride and groom. He’ll do whatever needs to be done and have it back to me in under a minute. I can’t tell you how much more I appreciate him when we’re working together. At home, we do diapers together. He empties the dishwasher, I take out the garbage, we both fold laundry (I hate laundry). It’s all normal, repetitious, ordinary. But on a wedding day? I’m seeing this guy with new, much more appreciative eyes.

Together, we corral guests for family pictures. He talks to the DJs and the videographers, wins over skeptical grooms, and gets the little kids to smile.  He brings me water, and sometimes wedding cake (yay!), during a lull in the dancing at receptions. He knows my dorky hand signals when I’ve got him running around with an off-camera flash during the first dance. When a well-meaning guest comes up to chat with me about my camera while I’m taking the three seconds I can spare to photograph the cake, Marty plays interference, listening to their photography stories and answering their questions. He also comes to my defense. Wedding guests who have consumed one-too-many Tequila Sunrises, surly vendors, not-so-nice officiants: we smile, shoulder to shoulder, and (respectively) shoo them away, win them over, nod and comply. We talk about the bride and groom and their families on the drive home, because we love them, and we’re so happy. Weddings are happy.

I can’t tell you how many times we’ll pass by each other at the back of the church, during the ceremony, and he’ll be mouthing the vows to me: for richer or for poorer… as long as we both shall live. I also can’t tell you how many times I’ve given him dirty looks for photo-bombing a picture I was taking (he rolls his eyes and tells me to relax). One time, I was photographing the bride and groom, and wasn’t watching where I was going. Marty and I collided, hard. I gave him a look that I hoped was WITHERING. He grinned, kissed me on the cheek, said something that made the bride and groom laugh, and kept on walking.

So we’ve found it, this little thing that we do together, that we invest time and energy into. We do fist bumps behind the scenes, or get all excited when one of us nails a shot. I bust a move during “Footloose,” and he’s like, “Yeah… no." We act dorky. It’s refreshing, because as parents, you don’t really get to act dorky. (You also don’t get to dress up. Confession: I wear heels when I shoot weddings, because I never ever get to wear them anywhere else. My feet are crying ugly tears at the end of the day, but my silly heart is happy.)

Like marriage, wedding photography is hard work, but it’s good work, and well worth the effort – dorky dance moves, withering looks, wedding cake, and all.

Love, Sherah

Long Distance

Dear Sherah,

This letter finds me in Jakarta, waiting for my friend Ashley’s baby to be born. She got here on September 11, I came on September 29, her husband came October 5, her due date was October 11, and I don’t yet have a return ticket.  

Ashley and I met four years ago at the beginning of our process with MAF, and we arrived in Indonesia two years ago within the same month. We then spent a year on the island of Java as neighbors and makeshift teammates, learning everything from scratch and culture shocking together. Once she came over to watch a movie and found me crying into a bowl of popcorn; she gave me a hug and told me I wasn’t crazy, which was exactly what I needed. Once I went to her house and found her lip three times its normal size as the result of a freak allergic reaction; I laughed while she laugh-cried, and then we looked up remedies online. One of my favorite memories from that time was when we had a sleepover while our husbands were out of town, like we were in seventh grade or something. We stayed up talking until four in the morning while drinking caffeinated beverages and laughing at how much we’d be kicking ourselves when our two-year-olds woke up. The next morning we agreed: worth it. 

You know those friendships where you meet and click? The connection is strong and the conversation is immediately deep and easy? You just “get” each other? (I would say that’s true of you and me, would you? Our lives have never been interdependent in any real way, but there’s always a connection.)

That wasn’t Ashley and me. We were always friendly, absolutely. But it wasn’t until we really needed each other that we took the time to understand each other and create a friendship. We learned each other’s stories. We offered help and asked for it. We met for coffee, over and over. We apologized and forgave. We stopped issuing advance invitations for dinner and started texting each other in the late afternoon. “Plans tonight? Our place at 6?” Somewhere along the line the conversation became easy and deep. And somewhere along the line—I think as we were tearfully parting ways to different islands—we promised to be there for each other when we had babies in Indonesia.

So here we are in Jakarta. Despite her amazing attitude, I can tell Ash is getting a little impatient. Isn’t every woman in those last days? Even the ones who haven’t been displaced from home for five weeks, who aren’t on the other side of the world from their family, and who aren’t paying a nightly rate for each day the baby doesn’t come? But whenever I sense that her impatience might be a little tied up in the fact that I’m here and waiting too, I do my best to remind her that I’m exactly where I want to be. In Jakarta. With her. Parenting side-by-side in close quarters, night swimming at a resort, taking taxis to Starbucks, staying up late talking, apologizing after getting a little tired and grumpy, and asking, “What’s the plan for dinner tonight?” so many times that we’re getting annoyed at the decision. This is the kind of thing you’d only do with a very good friend. But it’s also exactly the kind of stuff that good friendships are made of.

(You know what good long-distance friendships are made of? Letters. Loving this. Love you.)

Joy

P.S. Your new weekly ritual sounds incredible. I would SO take a ballet class with you. I’ll bet you look just smashing in a leotard.