Fall weddings and photography are dreamy. The light is soft and low, everyone and everything seems to be wise with experience and soul. Ready for rest. It lays the foundation of a new year added to our life cycle, and I like that it begins with chilly walks in the woods and then a slow withdrawal. Of rest, promise and new beginnings.
My birthday is in the fall and was usually spent indoors growing up because the weather on November 2nd in the Chicago area is almost never ideal. What little dreamy suburban girl of the seventies wanted to be outside in the gloom? Not many peeps in my orbit were outdoorsy hikers and campers back then, but my parents and their friend group used to do an annual fall picnic that brought all us kids out into the forest preserves of the North Shore of Chicago. It was one last outdoor run-around, and we sat by a bonfire before we were confined indoors for winter. Us kids had built-in friends because our parents were friends, so we all looked forward to the fall picnic. We giggled while saying the name of the spot, “Dam Number 2,” because it was the only time of the year we were (in our perception) allowed to “swear.” What I realize now is that the fall picnic was one of the first glimpses of my love of being in nature. In my present life it manifests with daily walks, “photo safaris,” bike rides, not as many camping trips as I’d like, and when I’m lucky, an outdoor fall photo shoot.
When the older kids in our group were getting into their teen years, our parents slowly stopped planning the fall picnic, but I remember one of the last years, when I was old enough to like some of the boys in the group, I began asking a few of the other kids and yes, some of the boys (ulterior motives for sure) if they wanted to “walk in the woods.” I don’t really remember anyone taking me up on it. Mostly, when we were younger, we stuck around the campfire, ate food and played games because we weren’t yet old enough to wander too far from our parents. Off I went on my own, and I still have a vivid memory of the cold on my cheeks and the sweet, earthy scent of the decaying leaves, but mostly of the freedom I felt wandering off into what felt like the wilderness. I remember the silence and being so happy that I broke out into song. Unfortunately for anyone within earshot, the song was “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’” by Journey. What does a preteen girl sing when she’s thinking about cute boys in nature? I didn’t get my first camera until my 16th birthday, so taking pictures of nature wasn’t even on the radar. Neither was transcendence. I could only take it all in and spontaneously sing about potential love (and cute boys).
Every season is my favorite season. I love them all, and I’m happy to be back in the Midwest, where we truly watch the seasons change. We now get to fully experience that longing for spring and rebirth after the death and mulching stages of the year.
I had a vision once in meditation that I was a wilting, dying sunflower. It was right before my father died. My father died 24 hours after my 55th birthday ended and it was the second year of the pandemic. It was the fall season and one of the last words he said to me was “sunflower.” I asked my mom why he might have said that (he mumbled something about mountains before that) and she said he was probably remembering the sunflower fields as we drove through the Central Valley returning from the mountains to the Bay Area when they came to visit me in California. It wasn’t long after his death that Brennan and I began talking more seriously of moving to the Midwest. I thought I would never leave California, but the cost of living, the wildfires and the smoke were starting to really affect our lives. I loved the mountains. I loved the rivers and the ocean. Thinking of living without it all was like a death. That’s how much I’ve grown to love and appreciate nature. The sunflower was the symbol. My life and love in California were ending, but my life in the Midwest was a seed resting for the eventual sprout.
It was after landing in Indiana for a year and then two full years in Southwest Michigan that I nearly drove off the road when I saw a sunflower field in full bloom. It took my breath away. It was like I had died and gone to heaven. The rebirth of the sunflower right here in the Midwest. I’m not sure why I thought a sunflower field wouldn’t be possible in the Midwest. I’m also not sure why I thought I would never come back to life after leaving California. The dying sunflower in my meditation was a talisman of the great changes that were about to come: out of the pandemic, out of the death of a parent and three friends, and out of the letting go of a life I thought I was going to lead in a part of the country I loved.
We’re slowly discovering the deep beauty of the Midwest and just the other day, a full week after my birthday, it was 70 degrees and sunny. I was driving back from a photo shoot in Chicago and spontaneously decided a dune hike was calling. And I answered. Lake Michigan was so blue, the deep late-fall color on the trees that still had leaves was gorgeous, and the sound of the waves was like a glorious white noise. As I sat way down the beach, the waves blissed me out and wove my psyche into the deepest meditation I’ve had in a long time. My love of the Midwest is growing, and that little girl who wanted to walk in the woods is asking to go out into the wild again.
As I begin sprouting my wings back in the Midwest, I realize it’s going to be a bunch of cycles. Of fits and starts. But my creative mind is opening up again and photography in the fall is just as lovely as in any season. Now I’m ready to wrap up this photo season and dream about the next in my winter slumber. I’ll sift through past photos as I organize my 25+ years of photography and let the ideas flow. It’ll be a cozy winter of walks in the snow and snuggling under blankets, imagining all the fun I’m going to have photographing and telling stories old and new. Enjoy these fall photos I pulled while working on the slow process of tagging my portfolio, sitting, drinking tea and imagining the life and photos I have ahead of me right here in the Midwest.
The West Michigan Sunflower Field at Twin Maple Orchards
The WOW factor!
