My friend, Tom, took this photo of me. We were at a beautiful artist retreat in Napa, CA and I had my Pentax 645N with me. Tom being a kindred film lover, admired my medium format baby and asked if he could shoot a photo of me with it. I said sure. An unsettled yet trusting feeling washed over me as Tom framed the shot, and clicked.

I had forgotten about this photo until I got my film back, processed by the lab. As I scrolled through the images, this one caught me a bit off guard. Oh, right. Tom took a photo of me. And then I stared at it for a long time. It’s one thing to take a self-portrait — and most of you know I’ve taken my fair share of those. But it is a completely other thing to have someone else see you. To let them in. And then, what do they see? What of you have they captured?

As this mulled around in my head, and still is,  I thought about another piece of our time in Napa. That is painting and writing and making something together. Nothing is unconnected.

As I reflect on that photo of me, captured by Tom, I think about the universality of our experiences. How every single one of us on the planet wants exactly the same things — to be seen, to be accepted, to be loved. And we all feel the same things — the longings, the doubt, the fear. And so this picture of me, is it any different than a picture of you?

Meghan of Life Refocused