Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

Lisa

What a picture is worth

“You should know before we start that we are not a precious family.”

I prefaced our family photo shoot with these words, wanting the professional photographer who was taking our photos to understand our expectations. She laughed, whether at the bluntness of my statement or something else, I don’t know for sure. I’m not even sure why I felt the need to say it except that I wanted to lower my own expectations for these photos.

See, there was a time in my life when I wanted the picture perfect family. The picture perfect life. 

But I’m 40 now and life has been far less than perfect and even the pictures that might make it seem so don’t show the whole story.

More than anything right now, I want a real life. I hoped the pictures would show that realness, even as a little part of me hoped they might show us in a slightly better light.

I need to pause here and say a word or two about our photographer. She was amazing and put us all at ease. Her creative vision was inspiring and I trusted her completely with our family photos. (Check her out here.) I also asked her to take some photos I could use on my blog and in other writing related ways. I’m slowly increasing my professional presence on the Internet and new photos of me was something I’d put off for a while. (Because let’s be honest, I don’t like to be the center of attention except on rare occasions.)

It was a fun hour for us. The day was beautiful, even if the ground was soggy. We walked through a park and managed to make a few of the spaces in and around our house usable for photos. When the shooting was over, the waiting began, and I hate waiting in these instances because I want to see how everything turned out.

I didn’t have to wait long. Less than a week.

And this is what we got. (It’s a sample. Click around on this blog and you’ll see some of the fantastic work Rachel produced.)

Photo by Rachel Lynn Photography

I’m always nervous to look at the final product. I’ve never felt like I photograph well but I’m ever hopeful that the real me will shine. (I don’t worry about my family. They’re all completely photogenic.) 🙂

I focus so much on my own image sometimes that I miss out on the whole, and my first impression isn’t always favorable. I will admit that on my first run through these photos, I was disappointed. Not in the quality of the work but in my own appearance. I’ve taken great care this year to become more physically healthy but I didn’t go to any great lengths to prepare for this photo shoot by getting my hair professionally styled or applying makeup. (Because, again, those things aren’t me. I’ve seen professional photos of people that don’t even look like how they look in person, and I’m on the fence about how I would feel if that were me.) I want my online image to match my IRL (in real life) image.

Can I really be “disappointed” if that’s what happened?

Let me be clear: I am thrilled with these photos. And I have to adjust my vision when I look at them. 

Photo by Rachel Lynn Photography

Because at first glance, I would not call us a beautiful family. I couldn’t hold a straight face looking at my husband when it was just the two of us being photographed. My son rarely flashes a “normal” smile. Like my disclaimer, we aren’t “precious” in matching outfits with gorgeous smiles. I’ve always had what I call an awkward smile. It’s lopsided and often looks forced unless you catch me in a moment of unguardedness. (This is rare. I feel like I’m always “on guard,” constantly aware of what’s happening.)

I’m never as awed by photos of myself as I am of photos I see of other people. Maybe this is part of the secret to seeing the beauty in the world–turning your eyes toward others instead of self. Maybe none of us can truly see our own beauty because the lenses with which we look at ourselves are distorted. 

But maybe there’s another secret to seeing beauty. Maybe it’s learning to focus on what you can’t see.

I can see the beauty in our family when I zoom out and consider the context. It’s been almost 10 years since we had a professional take family photos, and in that time, our family has struggled. And we’ve overcome. (Or maybe I should say we’re still overcoming. I don’t know if it’s ever a complete process.) Our physical bodies aren’t the only things that have changed in that time. The fact that we are still a family of four is nothing less than a miracle, and the smiles we share, that we’re okay with being ourselves for a photo shoot, is the result of hard and difficult work.

Maybe surviving is its own kind of beauty.

It’s been a couple of days now since I first looked at the photos. I’ve chosen some to include on my various online sites (like this one), and the more I see them, the more I love them. (Sometimes first impressions are a lie.)

Photo by Rachel Lynn Photography

In a world where we capture everything in photos and can take unlimited selfies, sometimes it’s worth letting someone else be the one behind the lens. Sometimes we need to see what others see in us, to see ourselves through a different set of eyes.

That’s worth more than money.

Saved the best for last: Review of Searching For You by Jody Hedlund

I’m usually sad to see a book series end, and in the case of Jody Hedlund’s Orphan Train series, I’m especially sad because she saved the best for last.

You can read my reviews of the first two books in the series here and here, and if you haven’t read them, I’ll try not to spoil too much for you with my take on this third and final story. Each book tells the story of one of three sisters who have had to make hard choices about their life and future in order to survive, and for all of them, the choices ultimately led them to board an orphan train heading west from New York to rural towns in Illinois.

Maybe you can already tell why I’ve liked this series. (It’s Illinois, in case you’re wondering.)

Searching For You tells the story of Sophie Neumann, the youngest of the three sisters and the one who has been on the run and missing from her sisters’ care. She has been caring for two young children, themselves orphans, and doing whatever it takes to keep them all alive and fed. When her current living situation becomes too dangerous, she is forced to board an orphan train with the two children and head west. Sophie plans to disappear with the kids in Chicago but that plan doesn’t work out and the three of them land in a rural Illinois town where the two younger children are taken in by a family and Sophie goes to live and work on a farm with a Scottish family who embrace her as one of their own.

And it’s here that Sophie is reunited with her one-time neighbor Reinhold Weiss. While she learns more about farm life and hears about her sisters’ lives since they separated, Sophie enlists Reinhold’s help to get the two children she’d been mothering back into her care.

That’s all I’m going to say about the plot, specifically, but here are some of the things I loved.

  • The way Sophie settles in to rural life and finds belonging. She blossoms with stability and learns to stop running from her problems.
  • The family of Scots, who are a delightful addition to this community. The mother, Euphemia, is full of grace and wisdom, including this gem: “When we’re finally willing to let go of the messes we’ve made, the good Lord can step in and salvage the scraps.”
  • And I’m especially fond of stories where a romance blooms out of a friendship because it mirrors my own love story. (This is not a spoiler, exactly, because Jody Hedlund writes historical fiction chock full of inspirational romance.)

I’m a big fan of Jody Hedlund books, so I won’t spend another blog post gushing about how I drop everything to read one of her books and let everything else in my life go until I finish it. (This is the highest compliment I can give to any author.)

If you are into historical romance, I would recommend anything by this author. If you don’t want to start with this series, I can point you in a good direction for where to start.

Disclosure: I read an advance copy of the book from the publisher. Review reflects my honest opinion.