#ourdogukame

[stephanieberbec]

Messy kitchen with 70 year old lens glow.

[stephanieberbec]

Rachel turned 34 yesterday. The milestones (and even the mundane) are hard this year. We unexpectedly her dad in November — he was only 54. He had such a brilliant mind and was, without doubt, her favorite person.

In her memoir, the photographer Sally Mann writes on 'beauty tinged with sadness' and that's how everything feels now.

She continues: "For me, living is the same thing as dying, and loving is the same thing as losing, and this does not make me a madwoman; I believe it can make me better at living, and better at loving, and, just possibly, better at seeing."

In the midst of living through the unimaginable, Rachel also graduated with a master's degree in Urban Spatial Analytics from Penn in May. And she's now the Project Director for a HUD funded research center at Winston-Salem State University. We're back in North Carolina, taking it one day at a time.

While we can't know what this next year may hold, I'm certain the rest of our lives will be this beauty tinged with sadness. At the very least, here's to (hopefully) becoming better at living, better at loving, and better at seeing. Rachel deserves all the birthdays and congratulations and love you can send her way forever and ever.

These photos are of Rachel walking our dogs tonight, a little beautiful and a little sad.

[stephanieberbec]

[stephanieberbec]

Dog-walking in rural America + the last light of the day.

—

These mailboxes were removed and replaced with a single new mailbox + wooden post two days after I took this photo, much to my surprise. When in North Carolina, I walk by this elderly woman's house (and sometimes yard full of chihuahuas) with my dogs multiple times a day. I now feel lucky to have photographed this before the new replaced the old.

[stephanieberbec]

[shneevon]

#ourdogukame

[stephanieberbec]

[stephanieberbec]

Last night Steven cut some length off the legs of sweatpants that were too long. We put the remains on Rollins and Ukame and then realized we’d created infinity scarves for dogs. Never taking it off.