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“So?” Meredith asked. “Why kids? I thought we parents were the only ones who loved looking at them somuch.”
There was a light in her eyes that Nina liked. She was probably a great mom. “In the beginning I had no idea what I was doing — I still don’t, but that’s another story — and I’d just wander the city looking for subjects that inspired me. But when I went through all the pictures I’d taken at the end of a weekend, I realized a lot of them were ofkids.”
“Look, Mommy!” Lucy called. “Look at me! I can stand on myhead!”
She bent over at the waist and stuck her head in the snow, oblivious to the cold and wet, and tried to kick her legs into the air, a balancing act that resulted in her toppling into the snow in a fit ofgiggles.
“Wow, you’re really great at that, Lucy,” Meredith said. “I’ll have to take you to yoga with me next week.” She turned to Nina. “Sorry.”
Nina waved away theapology.
“Please, go on,” Meredithsaid.
“Are you sure?” Nina asked. “I didn’t want to interrupt your afternoon. I was just going to snap a couple pictures and leave you toit.”
“No, I’m interested,” Meredith protested. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to think about something I enjoy that doesn’t feel necessary. It’s just Lucy and me, and well… let’s just say it’s a full-time job holding it all together. I’d be screwed without mymom.”
“I can’t even imagine.” Ninasaid.
“So what did you think when you saw all those photos?” Meredith asked. “When you realized a lot of them werekids?”
“Honestly?”
The woman’s nod was slow. “Yeah.”
“At first I thought it had to do with the fact that I could never havechildren.”
“Oh…” Meredith touched her arm. “I’msorry.”
“It’s okay. It was hard for a long time, but I’ve made peace with it. I guess it’s a natural assumption — I can’t have kids and I’m taking pictures of kids — but when I really thought about it, I realized it didn’t have anything to do withthat.”
“What did it have to dowith?”
“Their spontaneity. Their ability to be so completelythemselves.”
I can’t wear pink, Nina! I’m aredhead.
“Ah.” Meredith nodded. “It’s in shorter supply as we get older, isn’tit?”
“Why do you think we let it happen?” Nina asked, surprised by how much she was enjoying theconversation.
Meredith sighed. “It’s easier in a lot of ways to let it go with all the stuff we have to think about. To be honest, a lot of the time days like this, days where I actually have time to spend with Lucy doing something fun, I have to remind myself. To have fun.” She laughed. “Like it’s another thing to check off my to-do list: have fun with Lucy. Be present. And imagine if we did retain the ability to be so childlike and spontaneous. Would anything get done? It sounds magical, but on a practical level, wouldn’t everything fallapart?”
“I’m sure you’re right. I don’t have kids and I feel the same way. And then there are all the shoulds and shouldn’ts, all the rules.” Nina looked at Lucy, digging through the snow to the dead grass underneath, muttering something to herself. “Lucy doesn’t seem to care about therules.”
“I can vouch for the fact that Lucy doesn’t care about the rules,” Meredithsaid.
Nina laughed. “Every time I look at the pictures I shot that weekend — kids playing in fountains or chasing dogs or letting ice cream drip down their chins — I’m reminded that how serious I take life on any given day is a choice. Does that soundtrite?”
Meredith shook her head. “It sounds lovely. Where is this permission form I’m supposed to sign? I could use a few new pictures of Lucy to send to my ex’s parents inFlorida.”
They continued talking while she signed the form and then Nina approached Lucy to get her permission too, because Nina wanted no part in making kids feel like they had no say in who was taking pictures ofthem.
Lucy readily agreed and was back to playing in the snow less than five seconds later. Nina moved around her as she played, careful not to interfere, wanting to capture the little girl in her uninhibited state ofplay.
Working with the Leica forced her to carefully choose her shots. There was no memory card, no ability to view the pictures in a window to see if they were right. Film wasn’t cheap, and while Nina accepted a certain amount of loss as necessary, she wasn’t careless with herfilm.
Lucy was an easy subject. Nina saw the same light in her eyes she saw in Meredith’s, the same easy smile. It wasn’t hard to imagine Meredith at the same age, rolling in the snow and laughing without a care in theworld.
She shot until her film was gone, exchanged numbers with Meredith along with a promise to get coffee or a drink someday soon, and headed through the park, Lucy’s rosy cheeks and gap-toothed smile still playing in hermind.
Maybe Meredith was right and it was part of the natural order to lose some of your joy with age, but Nina didn’t want to believe it. Wasn’t there a way to hold onto some of it? To be silly? To do unexpected things? To take risks, even if the risk was as small as attempting to stand on your head in thesnow?
What’s the worst that could happen? You’d fall? Someone might laugh at you? So what? When had those things become scarier than being tired andresigned?
She didn’t have the answers. She was still finding her way back from the Nina she’d been when she was married to Peter, the Nina she thought she’d been. She was still sorting through it all, sifting for the things that had been true as opposed to things she’d just thought weretrue.
But in the past two years, she’d had a taste of joy. There had been pain too, and sorrow. But she’d taken chances, she’d been scared, and the more she did it, the more alive shefelt.
It had to count forsomething.
