My goodness, Camille. I sure am glad that you added the disclaimer, but I still can't help but feel angry at the theft of tangible reminders of such a significant day. That lady does not own your history, her arms are too tiny to hold all the complexity of love demonstrated that day.
But these photos? With your babies? At Bridal's Veil , underneath rainbows? With all your knowings and all the question marks of your genesis bent into commas? This is archived history. So much unexpected fruition. Triumph.
I hope this was catharsis. Sankofa. You went back and got what was yours.
My heart aches for you and yours! Those Yosemite photos are stunning! I did not have a positive wedding experience and hated how the pictures turned out and have no good feelings looking at them. But we did a redo of our portraits on our favorite nature trail with our 4mo old son with a different photographer. They were PERFECT. So perfect that I can now have those photos hanging up in our house and feel in awe of our love. I’m sad our loved ones weren’t involved in the redo photos but we needed SOMETHING to have that documented our happiness more accurately. Sending love!
Carrington! YOU. GET. IT. I’m so glad to hear that you also gave yourselves a chance to redo and turn it into a favorite family portrait series. May it be a treasured branch of your family tree.
I love how you gave yourself a second chance. The shots are beautiful. I just wanted to raise a question: did. It occur to you to ask those who took their own pictures of all sorts of things at your first wedding to send you those photos? I am aware of a friends daughter whose photographer shot the entire wedding with the totally wrong lense destroying to his horror how unsalvageable they were in the days that followed.Dozens of friends sent her the pictures they had taken. They varied in quality but she put together an endearing assortment and that functions as her wedding album. I know ten years have passed but I bet some attendees have copies from your wedding. I share that for any use you might make or not make of it. Daniel
Thank you so much. My heart goes out to your friend’s daughter. I do have a few candid pictures that friends and family snapped on our wedding day. They are cherished.
I also feel inclined to say that while I am happy to have pictures that were taken by people who weren’t the photographer, focusing on that re-navigates the essay. the core of this essay was about the humiliating treatment I received, the power that was wielded over me, and the heartache of being forced to believe that accepting the less that was promised to me. Like I said, I do have photos and they’ve been important to me. But I don’t want to steer direction away from what this essay is about.
My heart feels fragile reading this. The tension of wanting was taken from you and learning to grieve, the intersectionality of faith and being a person of color and all of the complexities that come with that. Your writing is beautiful and tender yet filled with a deepening hope of restoration. A better person reading this <3
Wow. Beautiful writing. I am glad you were able to claim your joy with the new photos (they are wonderful). Lately I've struggled with what was withheld from me by people I thought of as friends, and I've struggled with how to forgive, to let go. I will hold your metaphor of a cake knife carving out something new.
As for photos, I think of a shot snapped by the disposable cameras we had set out at our wedding reception (Yes, we married pre-cellphone). In one shot I'm striking a pose and all my carefully maintained aspect of sweetness and 'good girl' is stripped away and I look saucy and fierce and possibly a bit feral. I see a woman who could be dangerous in the best of ways. My mother looked at it and lamented 'where is my sweet little girl?' I look at it and see all woman (I should note...I was 30 at the time.) I am still trying to get that fierce and feral woman to emerge again, I hold that picture as evidence of what might be.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this essay and share what you are struggling with. It took me 10 years to get to this place, so I OVERstand the rivers you are swimming through.
I love the description of yourself in the disposable camera photo from your wedding. I, too, seek to invite the woman that you are in all the spaces you enter. May her fierceness be revered.
Thank you for sharing such a beautiful, personal, bittersweet story!! My heart aches for the first half and glows for the second. Your refusal to turn bitter is aspirational.
I will probably write about the loss of my first baby one day, but not yet.
You are so welcome, Sarah. I’m thankful to provide inspiration for how you share your story and move through the world.
It took me 10 years to write this one. Our stories take all the time they need to be written. With that said, I send you gentle tenderness as you journey through writing about the loss of your first baby. Take the time your soul needs.
I am so glad to have come across your Substack. Your writing has inspired me. It’s so GOOD. The way you turn phrases is stunning. Thank you for writing and sharing. Beautiful work.
Oh my goodness, thank you so much Shondra! I’m happy to provide inspiration. You’re welcome for writing it and I’m looking forward to reading your works and engaging with it.
I'm so grateful for you showing us into this part of your heart, your story. I teared up, I felt it in my body. That lady doesn’t deserve our energy, but you surely do - and more. Thank you. This is a gift, and I hope you sense the honor given at its reception.
To your questions: I don't answers to all of them. Perhaps another day I will. I am thinking about the one photo I have of a theatre teacher who passed decades ago who has also visited me in dreams.
Oof. This cuts like a knife. I'm so sorry for this huge loss and feel the ache alongside you. Thank you for writing your beautiful story and encompassing the hurt that may always sting.
This, this, this: "I believe happy endings are not the cake but the knife – it is long and serrated, using its saw-like teeth to gently cut and reshape that which it touches to form the good that belongs to us."
As I see your joyous elopement photos, I burst into tears. My divorce for my marriage of 18 years was finalized in December. My heart aches for the renewing of vows that we'll never have. Sometimes the grief is too much to hold. I feel the heat radiating from my body as I weep and write. I've come to recognize this heat as a clearing; clearing away the underbrush, making space, alchemizing the sadness into something stronger and resilient.
Wow, Camille. I simply can’t imagine. My heart ached with you while reading this. I’m not a “everything happens for a reason” believer, sometimes shitty things happen because people are shitty. I am glad, though, you have a new memory and new moments and photos to share now with your beautiful family.
Gosh what a masterpiece you've penned. I have many takes.
After the "no contract just trust" I heard suspense filled horror music build in my head, and then you followed it up with "If you are reading this and you understand The Culture, know that yes she was and yes I should have known and damnit I guess a part of this misfortune is my fault because I shouldn’t have trusted her." and I hung my head in defeat.
I am so sorry you were robbed of the joy of your wedding day and even more sorry you had to endure self judgement and shame for something that was rightfully yours!
Your Yosemite elopement looked stunning, thank you for generously sharing these photos with us. Also you've completely blow my mind with the concept of the happy ending being the knife! I agree, I have been using a proverbial knife for years to cut and trim edges off of the image of family I was exposed to, to shape something new and special and at times joyfully unrecognizable but oh so rewarding. Cheers to the knives we choose to hold.
Last bit, "I am not opposed to begging when it is done tastefully in ballads sung in passionate quartets of Black men who knew they did wrong to their lover." This part made me turn on some Boyz II Men. Thank you for the read.
My goodness, Camille. I sure am glad that you added the disclaimer, but I still can't help but feel angry at the theft of tangible reminders of such a significant day. That lady does not own your history, her arms are too tiny to hold all the complexity of love demonstrated that day.
But these photos? With your babies? At Bridal's Veil , underneath rainbows? With all your knowings and all the question marks of your genesis bent into commas? This is archived history. So much unexpected fruition. Triumph.
I hope this was catharsis. Sankofa. You went back and got what was yours.
Thank you, Sharifa 🥲 the question marks evolved into commas. Selah.
My heart aches for you and yours! Those Yosemite photos are stunning! I did not have a positive wedding experience and hated how the pictures turned out and have no good feelings looking at them. But we did a redo of our portraits on our favorite nature trail with our 4mo old son with a different photographer. They were PERFECT. So perfect that I can now have those photos hanging up in our house and feel in awe of our love. I’m sad our loved ones weren’t involved in the redo photos but we needed SOMETHING to have that documented our happiness more accurately. Sending love!
Carrington! YOU. GET. IT. I’m so glad to hear that you also gave yourselves a chance to redo and turn it into a favorite family portrait series. May it be a treasured branch of your family tree.
I love how you gave yourself a second chance. The shots are beautiful. I just wanted to raise a question: did. It occur to you to ask those who took their own pictures of all sorts of things at your first wedding to send you those photos? I am aware of a friends daughter whose photographer shot the entire wedding with the totally wrong lense destroying to his horror how unsalvageable they were in the days that followed.Dozens of friends sent her the pictures they had taken. They varied in quality but she put together an endearing assortment and that functions as her wedding album. I know ten years have passed but I bet some attendees have copies from your wedding. I share that for any use you might make or not make of it. Daniel
Thank you so much. My heart goes out to your friend’s daughter. I do have a few candid pictures that friends and family snapped on our wedding day. They are cherished.
I also feel inclined to say that while I am happy to have pictures that were taken by people who weren’t the photographer, focusing on that re-navigates the essay. the core of this essay was about the humiliating treatment I received, the power that was wielded over me, and the heartache of being forced to believe that accepting the less that was promised to me. Like I said, I do have photos and they’ve been important to me. But I don’t want to steer direction away from what this essay is about.
Bless you for your wisdom and example. Your photos are absolutely gorgeous and the love shows.
Thank you for the blessings. May blessing fall upon you, too.
I admire the way you used a painful injustice as fuel for personal growth and to build something beautiful. Thank you for sharing your story!
thank you for naming this and you’re so welcome
My heart feels fragile reading this. The tension of wanting was taken from you and learning to grieve, the intersectionality of faith and being a person of color and all of the complexities that come with that. Your writing is beautiful and tender yet filled with a deepening hope of restoration. A better person reading this <3
my goodness, that is the greatest compliment to receive after sharing my story. may we both walk with our spines reaching heaven
Wow. Beautiful writing. I am glad you were able to claim your joy with the new photos (they are wonderful). Lately I've struggled with what was withheld from me by people I thought of as friends, and I've struggled with how to forgive, to let go. I will hold your metaphor of a cake knife carving out something new.
As for photos, I think of a shot snapped by the disposable cameras we had set out at our wedding reception (Yes, we married pre-cellphone). In one shot I'm striking a pose and all my carefully maintained aspect of sweetness and 'good girl' is stripped away and I look saucy and fierce and possibly a bit feral. I see a woman who could be dangerous in the best of ways. My mother looked at it and lamented 'where is my sweet little girl?' I look at it and see all woman (I should note...I was 30 at the time.) I am still trying to get that fierce and feral woman to emerge again, I hold that picture as evidence of what might be.
Hi Rea,
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this essay and share what you are struggling with. It took me 10 years to get to this place, so I OVERstand the rivers you are swimming through.
I love the description of yourself in the disposable camera photo from your wedding. I, too, seek to invite the woman that you are in all the spaces you enter. May her fierceness be revered.
Thank you for sharing such a beautiful, personal, bittersweet story!! My heart aches for the first half and glows for the second. Your refusal to turn bitter is aspirational.
I will probably write about the loss of my first baby one day, but not yet.
You are so welcome, Sarah. I’m thankful to provide inspiration for how you share your story and move through the world.
It took me 10 years to write this one. Our stories take all the time they need to be written. With that said, I send you gentle tenderness as you journey through writing about the loss of your first baby. Take the time your soul needs.
I am so glad to have come across your Substack. Your writing has inspired me. It’s so GOOD. The way you turn phrases is stunning. Thank you for writing and sharing. Beautiful work.
Oh my goodness, thank you so much Shondra! I’m happy to provide inspiration. You’re welcome for writing it and I’m looking forward to reading your works and engaging with it.
The photos from your elopement are beautiful 😍
Thank you so much!
This is painfully beautiful.
Thank you, Kahlea. Thank you for seeing words and holding its feelings.
I'm so grateful for you showing us into this part of your heart, your story. I teared up, I felt it in my body. That lady doesn’t deserve our energy, but you surely do - and more. Thank you. This is a gift, and I hope you sense the honor given at its reception.
To your questions: I don't answers to all of them. Perhaps another day I will. I am thinking about the one photo I have of a theatre teacher who passed decades ago who has also visited me in dreams.
Thank you, Nya. Thank you thank you. This one took so much out of me and I’m so very grateful to receive the honor you give.
Sigh, somethings are meant to be forgiven and to help us grow.
But wow, beautiful, beautiful pictures at the end to make me smile after such a hard read. I see only love and happiness!
Oof. This cuts like a knife. I'm so sorry for this huge loss and feel the ache alongside you. Thank you for writing your beautiful story and encompassing the hurt that may always sting.
This, this, this: "I believe happy endings are not the cake but the knife – it is long and serrated, using its saw-like teeth to gently cut and reshape that which it touches to form the good that belongs to us."
As I see your joyous elopement photos, I burst into tears. My divorce for my marriage of 18 years was finalized in December. My heart aches for the renewing of vows that we'll never have. Sometimes the grief is too much to hold. I feel the heat radiating from my body as I weep and write. I've come to recognize this heat as a clearing; clearing away the underbrush, making space, alchemizing the sadness into something stronger and resilient.
Thank you for showing us your heart.
Wow, Camille. I simply can’t imagine. My heart ached with you while reading this. I’m not a “everything happens for a reason” believer, sometimes shitty things happen because people are shitty. I am glad, though, you have a new memory and new moments and photos to share now with your beautiful family.
Gosh what a masterpiece you've penned. I have many takes.
After the "no contract just trust" I heard suspense filled horror music build in my head, and then you followed it up with "If you are reading this and you understand The Culture, know that yes she was and yes I should have known and damnit I guess a part of this misfortune is my fault because I shouldn’t have trusted her." and I hung my head in defeat.
I am so sorry you were robbed of the joy of your wedding day and even more sorry you had to endure self judgement and shame for something that was rightfully yours!
Your Yosemite elopement looked stunning, thank you for generously sharing these photos with us. Also you've completely blow my mind with the concept of the happy ending being the knife! I agree, I have been using a proverbial knife for years to cut and trim edges off of the image of family I was exposed to, to shape something new and special and at times joyfully unrecognizable but oh so rewarding. Cheers to the knives we choose to hold.
Last bit, "I am not opposed to begging when it is done tastefully in ballads sung in passionate quartets of Black men who knew they did wrong to their lover." This part made me turn on some Boyz II Men. Thank you for the read.