My last post here was almost a year ago. So much has happened since then, and I feel behind on sharing everything on this blog. At the same time, I feel like I’m right on time: living exactly what I need to live and being present.
Speaking of time, my relationship with it has taken on a whole new meaning.
There’s time as a friend — the kind that heals all things, just like it healed (and is still healing) my body after a 39 weeks + 2 days pregnancy and 30 hours of labor.
There’s time as a teacher — the one that teaches me to slow down and savor every second of moments I already miss while I’m still living them. How crazy is that!
There’s time as a film — a nostalgic kind of time that seems to move in slow motion. My favorite! It visits me often, whenever my daughter looks me in the eyes and smiles like I’m her whole entire world.
And there’s cliché time — the one that goes by way too fast. Blink, and it’s gone. You’ll hear about this one a lot whenever moms and dads get together.
Having a daughter makes me see the passing of time in a way I can almost touch. Every day there’s a new version of Mavie, and at the same time she’s a sum of everything I already know about her. And alongside all of her versions, a new ME is being born too. Someone who used to be a wife, a friend, a daughter, and who is now a MOM. MAINHA.
It’s a version of me I’m still discovering, and yet it feels so natural, as if I was born to live this moment. And at the same time, I find myself lost among clothes that don’t feel like me anymore, in a new body — a much stronger body, but one that carries the marks of everything it went through to bring a new human being into the world.
And then there’s my mom-photographer version. How amazing it is to have my own baby to photograph, and how much more sensitive it has made my eye. Before, I already photographed with so much love and care, trying to imagine and capture every detail parents would want to remember. Today, I know exactly what we moms never want to forget. Today I know what some of those hard nights are like, and how we forget all of it in the morning when we see a gummy smile that only asks for our presence. Today I KNOW how much quiet, overwhelming poetry there is in a tiny little hand holding on to a hand so much bigger than its own.
What a privilege.
So that’s it. I now have a six-month-old baby girl, and she’s incredible — so much more than I could have imagined in my wildest dreams. And now, your photographer is a mom.
Thank you for still being here and for following along through all of these versions.
P.S. From now on, I’m back to share photos of stories I haven’t told yet — like my pregnancy, and so many of the client stories I photographed this past year.
Xo, Alana
