Just Kinda Lovely Pictures

(see the titular pictures over here)

8 years ago yesterday, our family had a very sad day.

8 years later today, our world is having lots of very sad days.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any answers, solutions, or get-fixed-quick-schemes for any of these very sad days, but recently I’ve begun to find small comfort in the smaller moments (even if sometimes it takes a large amount of work to find this tiny amount of comfort).

In this great, big, beautifully chaotic story we call life, these moments aren’t always the ones we’ll remember because they’re more often the ones we’ll forget. In other words, they are simply the little moments where for one brief moment, we might step outside of ourselves and think:

“This is just kind of a lovely moment.”

But me being me, I can’t help worrying about worrying about worrying and for the last few months, one of my biggest worries (as much as I can call it a “big worry” in the middle of a global crisis) has been Losing these moments forever.

Luckily for me, about a year ago, my comrade, co-conspirator, and not-very-good-friend, Abdullah, got me into photography at which point I discovered something magical that I'm sure nobody else in history ever discovered before me: Did you know taking photos is actually a great way to save moments FOREVER (or at least for a slightly longer time than if I just store them in the old, out-dated, waste-of-space computer called my brain...)???

With this at heart, for the last few months, I’ve been saving more than a few moments by taking many more than a few photos and I think a Friday like today is just as good as any other any day to share all of these moments with all of you.

More unfortunately though, a grief support organization that I volunteer for in Los Angeles called Our House has had to postpone their annual fundraiser which would’ve been held at the end of this month. Considering grief support is (and will be) needed now more than ever, I ask that if you like, love, or just look at any of these photos, please consider donating to me and my brother’s fundraising page which you can find over here: 

https://ourhouse-grief.rallybound.org/jklp?tab=Dashboard 

And if you want to know more about Our House, feel free to check out this little thing I said about the organization at a free brunch they let me crash back in December: 

https://www.tannercipriano.com/thoughtography/2019/12/10/to-brunch-for 

But back to the moments at hand, because there are so many (more likely too many) photos, I think the best instructions as to how to best enjoy them is actually something my very-much-more-good-friend-than-Abdullah friend Audrey told me when she shared an even better bunch of photos (that you should also enjoy) last week:

“Pls don’t be scared to interact with any of the images as you go thru but also just soak it up as you please and also be safe because you're living (!)”

But if nothing else, I hope these photos at the very least help us both take an indefinite hiatus from our collective indefinite hiatus so that we can remember to celebrate all of our definite moments of life!

TL;DR: here are some Just Kinda Lovely Pictures!!!