They were watching from the window, waiting for me to get there. When I first pulled my car along the curb of this family home, the kids ran outside yelling, “Tara’s here! Tara’s here!”, jumping up and down. We all started dancing in the driveway – I think that might be the best welcome I have ever gotten from kids I was working with, and I loved it.

I mean, my own kids don’t even do that when I pull into the driveway.

This is Le Anne and her family. We went to high school together, and she stumbled across me online. What luck for both of us to find each other again.

(I posted a few from this session previously, here.)

Her home is in the same neighborhood that I lived in from the age of twelve, until I left at seventeen.

I grew up in the orange groves that surround her now, the ones her home was built on top of.

It was pretty strange to be there again, working, at the age of 34, with a girl I went to Prom with at the age of 16, who now has a house just like my parents and two kids of her own.

Time is a strange beast and it is passing us by faster than we can take in. Le Anne wanted her session at home, to have images of a time in her life that is so important, and so fleeting. That she loves so much. She is a big sap just like me, and teared up several times during her session, which in turn made ME tear up. I am so happy I got to freeze these moments in time for her and her sweet, sweet little family.

To slow down the slipping, just a tiny little bit.

xo.
Tara

PS:

 

Abba – Slipping Through My Fingers
Schoolbag in hand, she leaves home in the early morning
Waving goodbye with an absent-minded smile
I watch her go with a surge of that well-known sadness
And I have to sit down for a while

The feeling that Im losing her forever
And without really entering her world
Im glad whenever I can share her laughter
That funny little girl

Slipping through my fingers all the time
I try to capture every minute
The feeling in it
Slipping through my fingers all the time
Do I really see whats in her mind
Each time I think Im close to knowing
She keeps on growing
Slipping through my fingers all the time

Sleep in our eyes, her and me at the breakfast table
Barely awake, I let precious time go by
Then when shes gone theres that odd melancholy feeling
And a sense of guilt I cant deny

What happened to the wonderful adventures
The places I had planned for us to go
(slipping through my fingers all the time)
Well, some of that we did but most we didnt
And why I just dont know

Slipping through my fingers all the time
I try to capture every minute
The feeling in it
Slipping through my fingers all the time
Do I really see whats in her mind
Each time I think Im close to knowing
She keeps on growing

Slipping through my fingers all the time
Sometimes I wish that I could freeze the picture
And save it from the funny tricks of time
Slipping through my fingers…
Slipping through my fingers all the time

Schoolbag in hand she leaves home in the early morning
Waving goodbye with an absent-minded smile…