Now that I’m on break from school, my time management is already off balance. Tonight, I placed two pictures of my brother in a frame. Moments later it struck me that the baby on the right and the 10 year old holding a zebra on the left had about the same pose and smile:

It’s incredible… that the little chunky baby  I carried around in a plastic cart used for my dolls turned 11 years old earlier this month. Where did those years go? I bet my mother asks the same. And that’s probably why she loves taking pictures of us…

Taking pictures. Just grabbing a phone and snapping away. It’s something that’s so accessible to many Americans.

Not for my mother growing up in El Salvador. You had to pay “photographers” and so, there are few pictures of me as a toddler. And none of her as a kid.

…

Sometimes, though, I suppose there’s merit in etching moments into our memories, deep into the lines of our smiles rather than into memory cards and pixels. Because there are things that can never be captured, and that is every creative person’s greatest challenge. The photographer. The painter. The musician. The writer…

the poet…

Andrea writes poems about being queer, being in love, and being alive. Her words are the best video camera. Last weekend I attended one of her performances–something I couldn’t have imagined happening anytime ever. After a couple of snapshots I gave up on my iPhone camera and just listened.

It’s so hard to take in every word of Andrea.

She’s got one of those voices that makes even her curse words sound like music, like everything that has ever been called beautiful. I need say no more other than: How can God not love all His-Her children?