Last week I was in New Orleans with my long-time friend, Kendall. Together we were renewing our love for New Orleans, and for one another. Over the years we have shared many things: Childhood joys and sorrows, her love for theater and mine for dance, our dreams and our love affairs, resulting heartbreaks, our children and the challenges of motherhood, bouts of feminism and of sensual love for women, and our ongoing need to write down what we feel. We have both been wanderers, always questing; not always knowing for what we quested. Lately we have shared the fact of our aging, bodies becoming more frail along with our dreams. We are most fortunate for the comfort we derive from our lasting rapport, and also for lasting belief in our mutual journey. We may seem to live in separate worlds (She lives in Portland, Or. while I am residing in Ocean Springs, Ms. – back in my Southern home after years of moving from place to place.), yet our bond transcends all distance. We are in touch. We are always in touch.
Our meeting in New Orleans came about gradually; we spoke by phone of the possibility for at least a year. When it finally happened we found something else to share: Taking photographs. She has been a photographer for quite a long time, posting blips of great beauty and conveying her passion for life through images and words. For me it is a relatively new experience. It has been a peripheral thing rather than another means of artistic expression. I am still not sure where it belongs in my life, but for now it is a strong enough urge that I could join my best buddy in the quest for remarkable images. I think, as we strolled through Audubon park or the French Quarter we were every age we have ever been together. I even danced on an outdoor stage in response to her suggestion. Her superb eye for sculptural form and her familiarity with my dance produced this image.
I look at this image now and see yet another proof of our friendship’s evolving dance. How beautifully we are attuned to one another! How easily we respond together to a spontaneous moment!
A short time later I focused my little Canon as Kendall lovingly merged with a glorious Oak . It is clearly a happy union…another sort of dance. And I am there, too, still learning the capabilities of the new camera ,a marvelous thing to accompany my photographer friend and to learn from her experience.
We moved on to find birds, attracted to their obvious ease in this habitat made especially for them. The dance they offered us was the most natural dance of all. We were merely observers, but perhaps we were seeing ourselves.
A Dance of Balance 