On photography, college courtyards, and the future

I'm fortunate to be friends with gifted photographers. Like Cylinda and Yen, professionals in every sense of the word, who tentatively told me about their great new camera and would we be so kind as to oblige them with a photo shoot so they could practice their portrait and running-kiddo shots? 

As I'm a kind and giving friend [its just my nature] we agreed to be their practice models for a high-end photo shoot right before Waleed's second birthday.

I got the pictures back recently and well, they're amazing. Not only because of how beautiful the quality of the pictures were but because of the moments captured.

Many made me grin as I saw him laugh one second because he felt joy, and then in the next instant sink to the ground in serious circumspection as he stared at his trucks and how to align them just so. It's awesome to live with someone who lives so sincerely and deeply in each moment.

But some evoked other emotions. Like the juxtaposition of my baby clutching his pale blue ball and running through the college courtyard.

Something about it made me blink back tears, until I saw the next picture, from the outtakes, and then I had a trickle of tears running down my cheek because well, in this move to our new house and all the hustle and bustle of putting away clothes, unpacking books and running after my son as he unrolls the toilet paper to wrap artistically around our breakfast table, I forget how brief this all is. He won't be fishing out the box of Q-tips from the depths of a packed box to fling above his head like confetti when he's twenty. He might be in a college courtyard then. But certainly not frolicking through with his favorite plastic ball. These pictures reminded me for the umpteenth time, the stealthy way time moves even those seemingly long stretches of toddler-days [longer than the equinox sometimes]. And this final picture from the outtakes captures what words properly can't-- it captures what raising children is ultimately all about. 

I call it The Future.