Photo Story: A Visual Journey through Time, Space, and Place

Throughout my life, I have been shaped by the many places that I have lived in or visited. Earlier on in my life, my family moved often, which led me to live in a variety of different cities and places, such as Parchment, Kalamazoo, Portage, Florida, and most recently, Battle Creek. However, it isn’t just the places that I have lived in that have shaped me. Throughout this blog I will be discussing and displaying a variety of the different places that have not only influenced me, but have also impacted my social work perspective. I currently live in Michigan (and I was born here and lived all over, so I have included some photos of places I hold dearest here).

FLORIDA

The first place that I wanted to share about is Florida, more specifically, Deltona. I used to live in Deltona with my grandparents and my family. We moved down there originally to be closer to my Grandpa because of the health issues that he was experiencing at the time. I didn’t have a lot of friends there, and I didn’t like the warmth or the bugs there either, but my time living there taught me a lot about myself. I think that this experience helped me to begin to understand the resiliency that I possessed, as I had struggled to make friends initially and struggled to form new friends until about the fifth grade. Towards the end of my stay in Florida, there was a large confrontation that occurred in my family, which prompted us to move back to Michigan. While this confrontation encouraged us to move back to Michigan, it didn’t deter us from visiting with my grandparents in the future.

The good southern food was a particularly fond part of the memory attached to this photo as I have southern roots. A lot of my family on my Dad’s side is from the south, which is not a part of my cultural heritage that I get to connect with often, despite it being a part of my cultural identity. As such, places like the Dixie Crossroads stand out in my mind as the soul food there provides me with a link to my cultural heritage and helps me to feel more connected with my ancestors, even if it is in a more distant way. While the Dixie Crossroads is a spot that I remember dearly in Florida, it is not the only connection or memories that I have with that area.

This photo was also taken around 2018 or 2019, the same day as the photo of my Grandpa and I in front of the Dixie Crossroads. In addition to going to the Dixie Crossroads, my Grandpa and I also went on an airboat ride throughout the area. We explored the swamps in the area, looked at the wildlife, and got a different perspective of the landscape, away from the waters edge.

This experience in Florida is another one that I connect with a deeper part of myself, as I love nature and wildlife. Being able to view the Florida landscape from a different perspective is something that connects with the side of myself that loves and admires nature. While I had a lot of negative memories in Florida, experiences like this provided me with sensory recalls and positive memories that counteract the negative experiences that I had previously had in Florida. Besides from this experience connecting me with the side of myself that loves nature, this experience taught me about the duality of memories and how different sensory inputs can triggers different events. This is important as it is an experience that taught me about the different ways in which we experience memories or events and what can trigger remembering them.

From a social work perspective, I believe that my time in Florida helped to shape me in a couple of different ways. The first being that it is important to gain a different perspective on any situation or experience. Perspective influences how we perceive and react to a situation, which my experiences in Florida helped me to understand. The other thing that I got from Florida is understanding the nature in which memories or events are recalled. In working with individuals with traumatic experiences or other adverse life experiences, I believe that this understanding will help me to better understand what individuals experience when they describe feeling “triggered”, as I can relate to this myself.

THEOLAINE’S HOME

Moving on from my experiences in Florida, my next segment will be not only about a location, but about a person that I associate with this location. My next location is my Great-Grandma Theolaine’s home.

This photo is of my Great-Grandma Theolaine’s home, which was taken around 2008-2010; it is harder to remember the exact year. My family and I had gone to her house then to gain a perspective of where my family’s roots are. It was about getting a sense of connection to this place and understanding my family’s history with it.

My Great-Grandma Theolaine was a large influence in my life, despite her being more of a “background character”. She was always present at events, but she was always a bit more reserved following the death of her husband Elmer. While she was reserved, she was someone that I had a lot of respect for. She had come from nothing, built a family, and was able to support herself. She was my first example of a matriarch.

From what my family had told me, before the death of her husband, she was a bit snappy and sassy and she liked to joke around a lot. However, after her husband (my great-grandfather) died, she became a very unhappy person. It seemed like she was just waiting to die so that she could be back with her husband. It was a sad experience for me, hearing about how much happier she was, but seeing her in this part of her journey so downtrodden with grief.

From a social work perspective, my Great-Grandma taught me the impact of grief and loss and how great of an impact that can have on someone. Further, she taught me about the fierce independence of women, despite her coming from a time period where women were expected to be subservient. She came from a time period where women were expected to be submissive, but she was independent and had built herself up from nothing.

(The photo above is of a shed located next to my Great-Grandma’s house, while this shed doesn’t have any significance to me, it is still an image that connects me with my Great-Grandma.)

LILYDALE

The next location that I want to discuss is Lilydale, New York. I had first gone to this location, roughly four years ago. My sister’s best friend, Alyssa, was killed in New York years ago. Alyssa’s Mother wanted to go to commemorate Alyssa and she invited my sister to go with her. My sister had asked me to go with her to support her, which of course I agreed to do.

(Photo of me on the porch of a home in Lilydale circa 2022, participating in a tarot reading with other folks in my group)

Arriving there, I found it to be interesting as Lilydale was the start of the Spiritualist movement in the United States. This location is rich with history of the paranormal, hauntings, mediums, psychics, etc.

I think it was the sense of connection with the dead that drew Alyssa’s family to go here. I joined them for this trip back in 2020 and had returned again in 2022. This time, I went with my husband and my sister. We participated in ghost hunting adventures, getting tarot readings done, and connecting with the sense of the unknown.

The reason that this location stands out to me as it represents my connection with spirituality. I have what some may believe to be an eccentric or unusual belief system, which most may not understand. Yet in going to Lilydale, I was surrounded by individuals who shared similar beliefs to that which I hold, which is something that is important to me, in terms of feeling connected to others. Being in Lilydale helped me to feel understood and to be seen. In terms of applying this experience to social work, the biggest lesson that I can gleam from this is the importance of inclusion in any setting. Feeling seen and heard and feeling like you are understood is absolutely imperative in the fostering of any relationship. While this principle is important to me personally, I can use this experience to apply this same principle to social work practice and stress the importance of inclusion of all individuals.

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK

The next location that I wanted to share about is Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone is a place that I had always dreamed of visiting, but I didn’t ever think that I would actually visit it. Well, in April of 2021, I made my dreams, a reality.

The photo above was captured in April of 2021 in Yellowstone National Park. After having dreamed of visiting there for years, my husband (boyfriend at the time) and I had spent a few months of saving and planning and took a trip out there. This photo is one of the literal hundreds of photos I have of the various geothermal features in Yellowstone. This location is one that is so full of beauty, wildlife, and nature.

This location not only holds a large part of my heart due to the scenery there, but also of the memories that I have in the park. It was in Yellowstone National Park that my (now) husband had proposed to me, with the help of our dog, Buka. My husband had engraved a tag and attached it to Buka’s collar with the words “Marry me?” on them.

At first when Kevin kept trying to get me to bring Buka out of the car outside of the waterfall, I kept fighting it. “It doesn’t say they allow dogs”, “There’s people here”, “Why do you want him to go? He’s fine.” I would argue, but then my sister helped persuade me to bring Buka with us as we walked along the waterfall. Then, my husband kept trying to get me to look at Buka’s collar, even though I saw nothing wrong with it. I was stubborn with these attempts to. Eventually, I gave in and saw the tag attached to his collar as my husband proposed to me.

Yellowstone is now in my blood. I want to go back every single day. My husband and I have plans to retire out that way so we can be near the mountains and the wildlife. It is one of those places that just made me feel like I was home – and I spend every day wanting to go back.

Looking back on these memories I laugh because I was so stubborn with all of the steps that my husband had taken to attempt to propose to me. While it may not necessarily be a social work lesson, looking back at these events I get a reminder that there is a difference between defiance and stubbornness. One proves your strength and one can block your happiness. I think this is an important lesson for me to remember in my personal life, but also in recognizing how I approach situations in my professional life as well.

DISTRICT 5 SCHOOLHOUSE

Having discussed finding love in a somewhat both familiar and foreign place in the previous post, I figure it only best to move on to the next major event of my life, one that holds a lot of memory for me and helps define me. This event is my wedding.

My husband and I spent over a year planning our wedding. Having gotten engaged in April 2021, we got married in January 2023. The first step for us, was choosing a venue. We had visited the District 5 Schoolhouse in November of 2021, taking our dog Buka with us to visit it. After all, he had been a part of the proposal, of course he was going to be part of the ceremony as well.

Having had visited the venue in November, we decided we were going to explore our options and make a decision later on. Unfortunately, a little over a month later, Buka passed away from a splenic tumor. My husband and I decided that we wanted to pick this location for our wedding, without having visited others, as Buka had played a role in us visiting it. Having our wedding here was like an homage to Buka, allowing him to be a part of the wedding in spirit for future proceedings.

After countless hours, way too much money, and not enough sleep, we had arrived at our wedding day. Instead of Buka being with us, we had Nessie and Angus, the pups pictured above, with us. The day that we had spent so long preparing for and planning seemed to be gone in an instant. Honestly, I feel that if it weren’t for the lovely book our photographer had prepared for us, we’d hardly remember it.

The reason that I chose this location is because it is one that holds a spectrum of emotions for me. It holds grief over Buka’s passing, happiness at the joy and love being shared there, frustration with our vendors, and laughs at various events such as our nephew vomiting everywhere from nerves or the hideous chalkboard “art” we paid for. Further, this location reminds me of the painful lesson that all things in life that can carry such a long impact, can be gone in an instant. If we didn’t have our photobook, most of our memories of our wedding day would be a blur from how hectic it was. This location reminds me of the importance of cherishing events and appreciating them when they occur, because they could be gone in a flash.

The Great Smoky Mountains and Gatlinburg, Tennessee

Following the wedding, we decided to spend our honeymoon in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. This was a location that has a lot of significance to me as Gatlinburg is where my Dad’s side of the family is from. Previously I had discussed the importance of connecting with my cultural heritage and so I thought it would be a great place to reconnect with my culture, while spending time with my husband.

The photo above, was taken in February 2022, during our honeymoon to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. We had planned out several tasks that we had wanted to do while in Tennessee, including stores to visit, restaurants to dine, and nature trails to explore. Unfortunately, several of the activities that we had planned we couldn’t do due to the weather.

Instead of letting this set back hinder our enjoyment of our vacation, we decided to go on a hike with the dogs and just go exploring for a bit (on the trails that were open). It wasn’t our plan, but we still had a good time and enjoyed ourselves. We even captured the rare selfie, as we both hate having our photo taken.

As I look back on this particular memory, it gives me the lesson that sometimes you need to roll with resistance and go with the flow. Things may not always go according to plan, but that is okay. Being in the world of social work, you will often find experiences where resistance is present. Having resistance is okay, as long as you can roll with it and not push back against it too hard.

Speaking of rolling with resistance…

This photo above captures the first night of our honeymoon. I had just gone outside to look for bears before taking the dogs out. I went inside and said to my husband and our friend Patrick (who went with us to take care of the dogs) “bear check is complete!”. Because I had just completed bear check, we decided to take the dogs outside.

When we were outside, I saw a bear near our cabin. I decided to try to “shoo” the bear away, like any person in a horror movie before they get savagely attacked and eaten. Then my husband tells me “there’s more coming”. Patrick and I move away, standing back to back so we can keep an eye out for even more bears. We wanted to call 911, but our phones were inside.

My husband’s phone was nearly dead, but he managed to get ahold of the police and they said they would send an officer out there to assist us. So, there we were, waiting for either the police to rescue us, or the bears to attack us, whichever came first. Eventually the police came and loaded all of us into the back of the police car. Three adults, two huskies, everyone present and accounted for.

After scaring the bears away and letting the adrenaline subside, we laughed in shock at what had just happened outside. What is interesting to me about this moment is that as someone with depression, throughout my life I have not had a lot of self-preservation instincts, until this moment. This moment taught me that I do have self-preservation instincts, I just need the rights conditions to prompt them. Again, not necessarily a social work lesson, but at the same time, self-preservation is a key skill needed in social work to avoid burn out and stress.

Home Sweet Home

The last chapter I will include in this photo story is also the most recent one. This one is so recent that I do not have as much to say on it, but it is still something that is important to me.

My husband and I have spent a lot of time looking on Zillow and Realtor.com looking at houses, trying to find just the right house for us. Well, in January we found this house and decided to put in an offer. Despite numerous set backs that occurred throughout the home buying process, we were able to purchase it and obtained our first house.

We have spent the past week moving all of our belongings out of the apartment we lived in, where we frequently witnessed shootings, overdoses, and drug deals, to this peaceful and quiet neighborhood. Despite my husband and I both being sick, we moved all of our belongings over, bought a new car, and have begun making this house into our first home.

I wanted to include this because I feel like this photo story is more than just a picture book of the places important to us, it is also about showing a narrative of our growth and development along the way. I have explored my spirituality in Lilydale, learned about resiliency and the impact of memory in Florida, seen the impact of my stubbornness in Yellowstone and learned about how locations can cause us to feel a whole spectrum of emotions through my experiences at District 5 Schoolhouse. While I could have just used stock images of these places from Google, I wanted to show authentic photos which captured the memories in that moment. I wanted to convey memories, convey heartbreaks, and convey growth from these locations. That is what the photo story is about. I will end it with this photo as I burn our moving boxes and look forward to next chapter to add in future photo stories.