It’s been a banner year, and I’m so very grateful. Putting together this highlights reel was a bit cathartic– almost surreal– as I thought back through all of the projects and places that this year has taken me. Dozens of shoots, 13 countries (if I’m counting right), and a broad range of stories. Frankly, I’m overjoyed and humbled. And I’m so excited for what 2012 has to offer.

90% of what you see in this little piece are from the last 12 months.

Here’s to another adventurous, inspiring 12 months!

A Brief History of the World / A Love Story from Loose Luggage on Vimeo.

This is a fun little film I made for my best friend about the day of his engagement. Hopefully not your typical “engagement video.”

MUSIC BY
Cloud Cult
Josh McBride (Lucky Wilber), Emily Weiss (MLE), & Josiah Johnson (of the Head & the Heart)
Simon & Garfunkel
Bob Dylan

FILMED BY
Adam Sjöberg http://www.vimeo.com/looseluggage

ADDITIONAL FOOTAGE
Archives

EDITED BY
Adam Sjöberg http://www.vimeo.com/looseluggage

I recently had the pleasure of hanging out with Arthur Hitchcock and his devoted friend Anthony here in the city I love. Arthur has a pretty remarkable story that I can hardly do justice in a few words here.

Last Sunday he walked into the Atlantic Ocean near Coney Island after a 5 month journey on foot from Long Beach, CA. Arthur is one of very few modern men to accomplish such a task.

The journey began months before he set foot outside of his home town. When Arthur was only two years old his father, a photographer, passed away very suddenly. Since then he and his mother have been each others world. In September of 2010 she was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. One month later she passed away. With both of his parents gone, Arthur began preparing for an epic journey across the United States entirely on foot. It was a funeral march, of sorts. A chance to think, escape, move forward… one step at a time… and honor his mother’s spirit as a passionate adventurer and his father as a photographer.

In a few days I’ll be heading to Augusta, Maine to see him complete his journey. He has a million stories to tell, so I’ll leave that up to him. Check out his photos and stories here and help support the fight against breast cancer here.

Photo 2 down is Anthony. Read the article below (and stay tuned) for more info on Arthur’s story.

Arthur, you inspire me.

Well, I’m still releasing this today but definitely at (literally) the eleventh hour. I’m up in the mountains for a shoot and thought for sure that I would have had Internet before now.

I’ll keep this short and sweet. This project was born in late January of this year. It took a month and a half to plan, a single day to shoot, and now six months to finish. In a lot of ways I was exercising creative muscles that I’d not yet used and it was an incredibly rewarding growing experience to make.

I was overwhelmed from the beginning to have such amazing talent- Tyler Riggs and Suvi Koponen. Go ahead, google them. They’re rockstars in the fashion world and were incredibly versatile actors. As I mentioned, it was a one day shoot which is a very short time to shoot such a breadth of content and they were fabulous– braving the freezing cold Chelsea piers and sitting in lukewarm bathwater for an hour and a half. Not to mention they were a delight off camera.

Also a million thanks to Janelle Wible who produced this with me. Without her selfless efforts I never would have finished it (or started it for that matter).

Below are the rest of our amazing crew. I will add links to all their work when I have better internet but in the mean time please google them because they all have amazing personal work. Thanks a million to all of you! Without your belief in this project and selfless dedication the day of, it wouldn’t have happened.

Enjoy.

Talent: Tyler Riggs, Suvi Koponen
Executive Producer: Janelle Wible
Music: Son Lux, The Silver Boys
Stylist: Dawn West
Makeup: Virginia Linzee
Second Camera: Nathan Smith
Assistants: Evelyn Rivera & Lily Fan
Set provided by: Andrea & Ira Lippke
Wardrobe provided by: Vera Wang & Native Son
Additional wardrobe provided by: Sonia Rykiel, Quail, Apolis, Lekuin, Okuta, Velvetine, & Mina Ro Mina
Special thanks to: Next Models, Red Model Management, Medium Concepts, LuxCartel

This post is a little self-indulgent… It’s not that I assume every image in this post is going to blow your mind (ha) they just represent a collection of images from my weekend under the towering redwoods with my good friend Eric and I couldn’t sacrifice any of those moments. So deal with it! (Double-ha)

My life is loud. Most of it, whether in New York or not, feels New-York-paced. Often I catch up on sleep in planes, taxis, and trains. E-mails are answered in transit, and much of my post-production happens while burning the midnight oil. With September and October comprising the busiest season of my year, and this year being the busiest I’ve yet had, I cherish any moments of rest I can get.  Sometimes these times of rest fly by all too quickly. I think it’s my state of mind. If I sit in silence and let my mind go wild with what I could be doing and need to get done, rest is anything but restful, and speeds past me before I can shut my eyes and feel the breeze.

However, last weekend after a shoot in Napa I drove my rental car (convertible – yay!) down through the valley, past the Bay, and up into the beautiful Santa Cruz mountains. My 48 hour hiatus with Eric was exactly what I needed and we filled it to the brim with laughter, soulful conversation, delicious food, and time around the fire under a blanket of stars. Because it was so deeply restful and I released the rushing world that I live in, it crept by slowly and sweetly.

While I was in India a few weeks back I had the opportunity to have a similar time of rest. While relaxing on the cliffs hanging over the waves that crash against Western India, I read 100 pages of journals from the last 4 years. I meditated on my journey, the Goodness of the God I believe in, and hope for the future. Thought I’d share a few words from 4 years ago in Southern Thailand if you care to read. Otherwise, skip to the goods below…

“Outside the gray clouds shove their way greedily over the blue jagged mountains of the southern Thailand. The Krabi airstrip is desolate, surrounded by lush vegetation that extends for miles in all directions.

Meanwhile, here I sit. My California home is still an eternity away. I am completely isolated. I imagine myself as what I am—a tiny, organic speck, like a bacteria or microbe, squirming about on the giant face of a huge blue-green sphere that pummels through a black darkness like an orange being tossed into the night sky.

I arrogantly assume the trophy position of the modern human: independent, free-standing, mobile. Mobility is my pearl of great price. It is my loftiest treasure, my trump card, my fountain of youth. My island-of-a-self slides carefree across the planes, mountains, and oceans of the globe. I absorb what I can of the cultural atmosphere around me, mostly I just watch. I peer, as though my body moves without my will, through two blue-green eyes. My legs cover ground, my hands exchange money and purchase bus and boat tickets, my feet grow calloused and brown in my sandals, my shoulders peel from the unrelenting sun, and inside this shell I continue to examine the world that I’m crawling across.

The whites of people’s eyes slide across my retina. Their bodies—of many varying tones—are a blur. Their garments simply swim around the sea of eyes as though they’re being painted onto the canvas around me. Each set of eyes, blinking, determined, aged, have seen a lifetime. The rise and fall of the sun, daily. The pain and joy alike boil in the stew of glistening pupils. Each eye is its own tiny planet, sliding through the universe of our smoggy world, gathering the dust of the past millennia. They rest daily, wrapped in skin and eyelashes, if only for a break from the data-flow. If only to ignore the dirt and grime of humanity long enough to become sufficiently numb to it, to reawaken anew, and then gather more information. A death here, a massacre there. A birth in India, a slaughter in North Korea. A kiss in Laos, government collapse in Sudan. A loving whisper in Denmark, a car bomb in London.

Can I please shut my eyes for longer than one-third of it all? Let me sleep infinitely, awakening only long enough to gaze into an orange sunset, or a star-filled sky. Let me light my view only with the sweetness of things, and collapse my window shades at the faintest chance of an eclipse of my golden sun.

Or should I stare weary-eyed always. Sleep only when death forces it. Stare red-eyed into the filthiness of it all and never blink. Will my mind allow it? Will my eyes dry with the raw air of human suffering?

Will grace allow me to gather these thoughts, this wisdom, this darkness I never should have seen, and sort each vision, like an encyclopedia, bringing forth each page, one at a time, to examine it under the finest of microscopes. Will I find, after my sight is blurred from staring day and night at those twitching microbes, a hint of beauty and hope under each membrane?

Science or Religion, whichever brings me the proper answer. Or maybe something in-between the two. Something I can’t put into words because if I did it would slide readily into either end of the spectrum.

If science were prose, and religion were poetry, each on violently disperate ends of a long rope, what great work of the human psyche would occupy the center? A song? It would be too much poetry. An equation? It would be too much prose.

If making the choice between the two, I choose the indecipherable. I choose it not because it isn’t unknowable– it is very much knowable. But it isn’t knowable like something you read in a book. It isn’t something calculable. It’s like the flutter of the heart at the sight of a lover. It’s like a long and beautiful sorrow—gray like a rainstorm, with silver light around the edges. It rises and falls like emotion, and shutters, twisting and turning, like a kite in the wind.

It comes and goes, because it’s ever-presence would numb you to it. It is a whisper. It is a deep rest and an infinite un-rest. It is tension and contraction of the muscles of your soul at work, unweaving the great and terrible mystery, pouring light into a dark void, and, when you’re blinded by it, dimming it so you can properly see the visceral and tangible reality around you.”

I’m short on words that can describe my recent trip to Samoa. It was simply an incredible experience.

I was raised in a family where the girls watched football while my dad and I took naps on Sunday afternoons. And when football was watched, it was all about the green-and-gold because my mothers family is from Wisconsin. But this recent trip with Troy Polamalu and 40+ other football players, coaches and family has made a lifelong Steelers fan out of me.

Troy was returning to the land of his family after 10 years of absence. His reception in American Samoa was not different then what a beloved King returning home from exile might receive. The week was filled with football camps, banquets, cultural ceremonies, and Island adventures.

For me it was definitely an exhausting trip – and I came home with over 30 hours of footage. But it was also exhilarating and emotionally moving.

One of the highlights of the trip for all of us was the players singing hymns in a 600-strong Samoan choir– songs that would break out unexpectedly throughout the football camps. Below this text you can listen to a clip of it. So moving.

Other highlights include an emotional trip to the Starkist cannery, and jetting around the bay on skidoos filming a longboat race.

In this post is a grip of stills I grabbed from the piece I put together for ESPN alongside Wild Hair Media. That piece is also below, or you can watch it here and check out the photos taken by Chris Baldwin as well as the story written by Carmen Thompson for ESPN the mag.

I’ve had an amazing week here in India so far filming for Warby Parker along with founders Neil and Dave, as well as good friends Lane Wood and Esther Havens. It was great to see Esther in action and work in partnership to put together a great story of Warby Parker’s sustainable and dynamic relationship with Vision Spring. Warby Parker provides high-end quality glasses for just $95 and works around the globe to provide a pair of glasses to people in need for every pair purchased through their site. And the great thing is – they’re doing it in a thoughtful way that is sustainable and stimulates local economies around the world.

Within this post are a smattering of shots taken off-the-cuff throughout our time so far. Below is a video I put together from a day Esther, Lane & I spent shooting b-roll in Delhi. More photos to come – and of course, a finished piece from Warby Parker in the months to come. Please check them out and buy a sweet new pair of specs or shades!

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In the mean time until I can post images from this trip, please take 12 minutes of your time to check out this mini-documentary I’ve spent the last few months piecing together. It’s not as polished as I would have liked but, well, I’m in India and there’s really not anything I can do about it at this moment and I really wanted to release it this week. I’ll update the link as soon as I’ve created a finished cut of it. This little doc is sort of a “behind the scenes thesis piece” for Shake the Dust. I hope it will give you a little window into my creative process and my heart behind this project.

Oh… and a little video about dancer Antonio Bukhar in Uganda.

Well, I’m not complaining because I realize the rest of the country has been in the same state… but it’s HOT. And in my neighborhood, that means all of the fire hydrants get opened up for a daily block party. These photos were all taken in Hamilton Heights in Harlem on different blocks.

Also of note (but unrelated): Check out this TED talk by Nadia Al-Sakkaf where she chats about “Shake the Dust.” Nadia is the Editor-in-Chief at the Yemen Times and an important interview/voice in my film.

I love it when worlds collide. In fact, that has been the focus of my career over the last four years: to document irony, and the juxtaposition of seemingly disparate ideas.

I spent this last week in American Samoa with Pittsburgh Steelers Safety, Troy Polamalu, along with his family, and a mixture of NCAA coaches, NFL players, and Nike reps. Troy made a splash on the island as it was his first time returning to his homeland in a long time. The week was full of football camps for the local high schools, and a stack of other events that left us all completely exhausted by the time we left. Although I was brought on to create a documentary about the trip (which will be forthcoming), I did take a few photos here and there. Literally what you’re seeing in photos are pretty much all I took. However, I captured about 30 hours of footage, and am so excited to begin piecing it together.

I recently ventured to Bogotá, Colombia for a 7 day research trip for “Shake the Dust.” It was such a great experience– I LOVED Colombia. And I really hit it off with La Familia Ayara, with whom I’ll be filming in August. Through graffiti, break-dancing, MCing and DJing, Ayara works with at-risk urban youth in Colombia to keep them off the streets, and aware and proactive toward a better future in Colombia.

I wasn’t really down there with the purposes of filming– just research. But I put together a little piece (below) from some of the stuff I shot off-the-cuff. Such talented kids!

Music. Well, that’s the video below. Publicity. It’s been a good couple weeks for me – with a New York Times shout-out, an interview on the BBC program “The World Today,” Glamour Magazine, Vera Wang, and Martha Stuart. And then work. I’m always busy but always aware that I’m blessed to be doing work that I love – and with great people (images below and above are of Nate Smith and Denise Cermanski at a recent shoot in Tribeca).

The videos I’ve been posting of “Fauxchella” are a part of a long-term project – a music film tentatively called “The Sound and the Wind.” Not sure when that will be wrapped up, and I don’t feel any pressure to set a deadline on it as I’m just too consumed with all the projects at hand (including a short film entitled “Stay” which I’ll be sharing about within the week). In the mean time, enjoy the consistent leaking of videos until the final piece is put together. You can check out additional videos on my Vimeo album for the project here.

Just spent an incredible weekend in the California desert (Joshua tree) with some of my closest friends (and a few great new ones) making music and putting another notch in a 4-year running tradition. I’m really excited about all of the footage that has come together from the last 3 years of music-and-merry-making. Many thanks to everyone and especially Laurel Dailey for all the hard work that has gone into this event.

You’ll be seeing more footage throughout the next year as I begin to piece everything I have (including a grip of interviews) into a music-documentary, but in the mean time, check out the small clips below and then head over to Laurel’s blog for more great photos and the whole story from this years festivities.

Still has a few kinks to work out, but there’s definitely a short video on there that you need to check out.

I’ve seen the sun rise 3 out of the last 6 nights. I sortof feel like I’ve been living in a cave (with the exception of a crazy night out dancing Friday night… my legs hurt). But it’s been good. Cathartic. Coffee is keeping me going, even though my eyes are burning from staring at a computer screen.

It could be reminiscent of my time in Art School when I would be up in my studio going just a little bit coocoo making Facebook pages about my sweatpants to distract myself from finishing an overambitious, last-minute projects (or staring at photos in the darkroom literally forgetting what time of day it is). But it’s not. For some reason I just feel really motivated… I have a lot of deadlines and they’re all basically… next weekend. So. Here I am. Tired but thankful.

Check out this video… every year a group my friends gather for a weekend of music-making. Two weeks from now we’ll do it for the 4th year in a row. So excited:

As we near the finish line for the new official “Shake the Dust” website and the teaser from Yemen, I got a little distracted (as I did in Yemen) with a sort of “side story.” I’m not sure how much you all know about the situation in Somalia, but it’s pretty tragic. As such, there are Somali refugees all over the world. I saw/met them in Uganda, Egypt, Yemen and even down the street here in Harlem.

I’m still trying to decide if this is tangential to the original “Shake the Dust” storyline, but in the mean time I thought I’d post a little footage from Hada in Sana’a, where many of the Somalians live.

If you can’t catch the lyrics in the video, here they are:

The problem at home, the difficulties at home
And my brothers, my people
The land of my grandfathers
The land of my ancestors
Where I wasted all my youth
Line up in front of me / Listen to my rap
Nigga SO legends Somali is my home
Hey world repeat after me what I say
My man AJ Yemeni, Arab
My blue flag like the sky when the sun shines
From the middle east Imma free ya’ll
My people killing, children dyin’, nigga, for what?
Somali, Somali, muslim, Arab
Run after power, no one lives forever
“I advised, I warned, but you ended up dead” – (somali proverb)
Heaven of earth, in the corner of Africa
Somalia, forever.

I have a “misc” folder that contains close to a thousand images from “off-camera” at various shoots. Some of them are funny moments that I maybe shouldn’t keep, but can’t bear to get rid of (none of the images here) and a lot of them are test images where my assistant or second gun is stepping in. Some are just crazy in-between moments. I’m sure I’ll post more out of this folder in the future, but for now here is a smattering. The first and last image was taken by Dave Tosti. You’ll see Nate Pelz a lot in here because he was my primary assistant/post-production-guru in 2010.

And I feel like I need to address something unrelated really briefly: The Yemen footage is still being sorted and pieced together! I promise I’m not just holding out on everyone. But I’m also waiting to release the official “Shake the Dust” website at the same time I release the Yemen trailer. I know, I know. I said I wanted to finish it by the end of February, and it’s now almost mid-April… but sometimes I’m just unrealistic about my time-line. Don’t know what I was thinking on that one. Can’t wait for you all to see it though. And can’t wait to head to Haiti in May!

I just got home from seeing Lupe Fiasco perform at Webster Hall in New York and my heart is still racing. His new album, “Lasers,” is officially available in stores today. Please do yourself a favor and check it out.

Well, I guess a little update is in order. Recently I’ve been plunging myself back into sorting through all of the “Shake the Dust” footage that I brought back recently from Uganda, Egypt and Yemen. And as I get closer (and closer) to finishing the brief teaser from Yemen, I thought I’d take the time to share a little about (and give some mad props) to the people that have been rallying around me through the course of this project. I feel a paradox of pride and humility to be able to add these people to the growing list of credits that will roll at the end of the film.

I first need to mention all the b-boys and b-girls. To all of the Breakdance Project Uganda crew– including the “star” of the recent Red Bull film “Bouncing Cats,” Abramz, along with all of the beautiful family of people he’s surrounded by. If I started listing all their names I would inevitably leave people out and misspell names, but I’m picturing all your faces as I write this and, seriously, thank you so much. And thanks to James Pearson of Ember Arts for lending his talents towards shooting the big jam in Acholi Quarter (many of his shots were in the Uganda teaser).

To all of the Yemeni bboys– Rockn City and Blast Boyz, Yemen’s very first two bboy crews. To Mohammed Almana, my man, Yemen’s very first bboy (from Iraq of all places). Also to AJ – Yemen’s first and biggest hip-hop artist.

A big thank you to Laura Kasinof, New York Times reporter, sole American journalist residing in Yemen, and regional producer of “Shake the Dust”– and more importantly, friend. Laura kept me sane when I was burning my creative wick down to the bottom at the end of my trip. To Faris Sanabani, President Saleh’s press secretary and owner of the Yemen Observer who backed me from my first full day in Yemen and whose support I’m incredibly grateful for, as well as his two sons. Also a quick shout-out to Tom Finn, who made the story of “Shake the Dust” and break-dancing in Yemen national news.

To Ruyonga, formerly knows as Krukid, the amazingly talented up-and-coming MC from Uganda whose has already generously donated his music towards the final feature film, big ups to ya.

To the talented Shay Grabowski from Alegria who is working on motion graphics, as well as Jonathan Newberry and the Love in Stereo crew who are helping me out with web design. Also, a shout-out to Harlem’s very own KR3Ts who believed in this project one and a half years ago when we shot at the Grafitti Hall of Fame as well as the Scott boys and their crew with whom I shot in LA.

And the list of friends and family that have been cheerleaders for this project from day one– THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. I’m so excited for what is to come with this film this year. Please keep coming back to Loose Luggage for more updates and enjoy a couple of random photos and clips below and above.

KR3Ts:

(Above: Laura doing a screen-test for me… Standing in for AJ)

This wedding was one for the history books. Editing this piece brought back all of the emotion we all felt in that little Church on the Hudson on October 9th, 2010.

I just needed to get this out and it’s going to take more then 140 characters. With the protests happening in Cairo and Yemen – and considering the fact that I will be in both places over the next 48 hours – I have (understandably) had multiple people ask me if I’m planning to document any of it. My honest inclination is that I have no desire to cover these stories. Yes, they are worthy stories to be told, but not by this storyteller. There are plenty of photographers covering the event and to be honest, the role I’ve been playing over the last 2 months has been to try and dig beneath headlines and find the stories that are underneath.

As much as Americans love to hear about peaceful assembly and democratic exercises, I’m also aware (with these things happening in front of my nose) of the way in which the Western media sensationalizes and plays up such events. I want, in my heart of hearts, for peace and prosperity for the beautiful people of Yemen. And if they want to organize and protest their (corrupt) government – I’m excited that they’re leaving their khat behind and doing that. But I guess I just feel a little… tired. Tired of seeing Yemen in the New York Times only when there’s an excuse to start the headline with Al Qaeda in the first sentence. And with Uganda – where they only make headlines when there’s a reason to show how corrupt and undeveloped they are. It’s not just that I’m an idealist – I promise - it’s more that I’m afraid we in the West are just going to believe the insipid lie that the only thing that makes a Ugandan a Ugandan is war and poverty. And the only thing that makes a Yemeni a Yemeni, is that he may or may not have strong ties with Al Qaeda. These are lies – and they are pervasive. These are people, not headlines.

I don’t know why this is effecting me so much. As I said, I’m tired. I’m at the end of a long two months of filming. And things that seem so black and white from across the Atlantic, are not only gray – but shades of every color in the rainbow when you look at them from a stones throw.

I guess I’d rather hear about the war in Uganda from my friends at Invisible Children – people who are not only informed about the war, but entrenched in the battle to end it – and deeply connected to the real people and culture of Uganda. Or my dear friends from Discover the Journey, who eat, sleep, and breath the stories of injustice they’re telling. These storytellers KNOW and COMMUNICATE that these wars, diseases, and corrupt governments are most certainly NOT what define these people.

CNN, The New York Times, God bless ‘em because I know journalism is a struggling field, they’re in many ways hustling. They’re selling an angle. And as one who holds Truth up as something to strive after, I’m looking for the real stories in the places I’m visiting and the people I’ve come to love.

On a personal note, it was kind of a fun moment for me to see these words projected on a white wall with hundreds in attendance:

Without further ado:

Many of these pictures were taken by Laurel Dailey. And the rest of the crew…

Spent the day yesterday shooting a wedding at the St. Regis in Dana Point, CA in a black suit with sunburn. But I guess the sunburn was worth it because at least I have a little viddy to show for it. Enjoy…

Heading to LAX.

Day 5

At around 3:30 AM Ben woke me up from my spot in the back of the truck. Incredibly groggy, but only a little stiff, I climbed out, pulled on my shell to warm up, and followed him into the main compound of Villa Creole. Ben was trying to utilize the time in the middle of the night while everyone was asleep to use the minimal (and usually crowded) wireless signal that was available. We needed to figure out transportation and a method of getting cash in so we weren’t helpless. Most importantly for Ben, however, was his responsibility to get his own mother to safety. I could tell this weighed on him, and the longer we stayed in Haiti, the more I felt his urgency to make sure he got her out and to safety.

While Ben used the internet, I pulled a couple of table chairs together, still aching for a few more hours of sleep, balled up to keep warm, and caught a few more winks. After an hour or so of relatively restless sleep– I’m pretty good at sleeping anywhere, but I guess everyone has their limits– I sat up and chatted with Ben. We reminisced about the last couple of days. We talked about the little boy, about his severed foot, his helpless parents. We talked about Doug– our loyal companion who has, to say the very, very least, a lot of personality. We talked about what we could do to begin getting ready to get Ben’s mother out of Port au Prince and safely to the States. We talked about what we could do for Haiti once we returned.

As dawn crept in, dreary-eyed journalists and doctors began slowly emerging from all areas of the compound– some from tents, others from hotel rooms, others from under blankets in the grass. As they had the mornings prior, the doctors rose early, ate whatever food they had with them, stuffed their day-bags, and headed out with the morning light to work, many of them at General Hospital.

The sky turned from cool blue to pale pink-and-orange, and the hotel staff brought out a meager complimentary continental breakfast. I was incredibly grateful for hot coffee (regardless of quality) and juice, yogurt, and some pastries. It seemed so far out of context, especially after days of mostly consuming Clif Bars. I went and alerted our Haitian brothers, who were emerging from sleep and from the truck outside, that there was breakfast. And though part of me felt guilty how accessible these amenities were for me, and how inaccessible they were for the many outside, I poured myself a cup of coffee, grabbed a pastry and cup of yogurt, and sat down with our “crew,” watching the sun slowly fill the compound with light.

One of the first orders of the day, for Ben and I, was to find a way for Doug to get back to Santo Domingo. It had become clear that his resources were depleted as well as ours, and he wasn’t any good as a rescue worker unless he was able to get back to Santo Domingo and receive aid from the people in his organization back home. He was also a real challenge of personality, and Ben and I decided that for the rest of the trip, we would accomplish the most by breaking away.

Throughout the past several days I had tried my best to be patient with Doug’s temper-tantrums, wild-goose-chases, hyperbolic self-acclimations, and awful bed-side manner. But it was really Ben that seemed to have the patience of Job. Often when Doug was being difficult, I was fuming, but Ben would quietly appease Doug, or seemingly acquiesce to many of his complaints. I understood that, at least at first, Ben felt a loyalty to Doug. It was Doug, after all, that had orchestrated (ahem, conned) his way, along with Ben, onto a plane that brought them in from Florida so that Ben could get to his mother.

But by the morning of that fifth day, Doug had pulled his last antic– even for Ben. And Ben had what he referred to as a “come to Jesus” talk with Doug. Essentially, he shot straight with him. And it was bizarre the impact it had. Instead of retaliating, or throwing a fit, Doug was agreeable. He had no resources, was low on money, and would go back to Santo Domingo where he could contact his people and regroup. Now the only challenge would be getting him there.

Discouraged that we wouldn’t be able to find a way home for Doug, but feeling a sense of responsibility to make sure he made it home safely, we asked around at the now-bustling compound if anyone knew any options for getting back to the Dominican Republic. Somehow through the early part of our search, Doug had befriended some people from The Christian Science Monitor, and before we knew it we were putting his stuff in the back of their large van, and were sending him off with hugs and waves. I don’t think he really wanted to go, because he must have said good-bye four times. Once or twice the door to the van would shut, the engine start, and then our hearts would flutter as Doug would emerge again to retrieve something else he’d forgotten, hug us goodbye again, and then climb back into the van.
But sure enough, by nine o’clock in the morning, we waved and watched the van filled with our friend and the correspondents from The Christian Science Monitor bounce down the road. Ben and I secretly wondered if the nice people on their staff would toss Doug onto the highway after an hour. But we trusted their patience and generosity and went back to the compound, smiling, relieved, bathing in the morning sunshine, and made plans for our day.

We decided that the best option for our driver, his truck, and the rest of our companions, was to send them on home to their families. They had been hired to travel with us up until this point, but we had no money left to give them, and no specific work to offer them. Ben and I would be alright, could find transportation, and had a wealth of resources at Villa Creole that we had access to. So we said good-byes, gave hugs, and watched as they rounded the curve away from us, back to their toppled homes.
Back inside Villa Creole, I cradled another cup of coffee and discussed the days’ plans with Ben, Simon, and a couple of young French reporters. I had a strong urge to go straight to General Hospital to see if their was anything I could do to help there. Another contact of mine, Jakob, who was a Swedish photographer from New York, had been sending me status reports from the hospital. He told me that he’d been able to help the doctors, and they generously allowed him to take pictures as well.

Simon and the two French reporters, who had been working as a set of three most of the week, had already been to the hospital and were making plans to head out into another part of the city. Both of the reporters were on assignment, and Simon, who was in Haiti independently, primarily stuck with them. The compound was pretty well cleared out by ten o’clock. Most of the journalists would work out in the city through late morning and early afternoon and would return by late afternoon to transmit their photos and stories back to their editors.

Short on cash, and pleased at the thought of a nice long walk, Ben and I decided to head down to General Hospital, a few miles away at the bottom of the hill, on foot. I left my big backpack at the front desk of the hotel, packed my day pack with everything I would need for the day including a water-bottle, Clif-bars, my camera, and few other odds-and-ends. I walked down the stairs, past the fallen foyer, the stairs to the second floor dangling above me, and into the bathroom that had been okayed for visitors to utilize.

I looked in the mirror. I don’t know that I’d seen my real reflection in several days. I look haggard. My sinuses were stuffed with exhaust and dust, and there were dirt circles accenting my sleepy-circles under my eyes. I had faint stubble, and hair like Peter Pan’s. I had pulled on a clean white t-shirt for the day, which was at the moment the only thing making me look even remotely presentable. I splashed water on my faces, brushed my teethe, scrubbed out some of the obvious dirt marks, and headed back upstairs.

My plan was to meet Jakob at General Hospital in one hour. The walk was down-hill, but we were unsure just how far it was. An hour? Two? Before we left the hotel compound I handed Ben one of my favorite vintage t-shirts– “No Guts no Glory”– and we ripped it into rags for him to use as a face mask. I had been using the same t-shirt I had torn up my first day in Port au Prince and it had been serving me well. At that we headed out like bandits down the hill.

Taking a long walk through the city was a unique and compelling way to survey the damage. Most of the time one could watch the horrifying scene from the safety of a vehicle. Viewing everything from inside a car gave a false sense of protection, and a very real sense of separation. With a window between you and the fallen bricks and broken people outside, you could watch but not be involved.
Along the way we stopped periodically to chat with locals. One man was selling giant tortoise shells. I stopped and ask if I could take a picture of him with the shells. He struck a dignified pose.

The winding road down the hill from Petionville affords a truly magnificent view of valley below. As we walked, Ben told me about the Haiti in which he had grown up. Although Ben had been born into incredibly meager conditions, he seemed to have mostly fond memories of his childhood in Haiti. After his mother transported him to New York, he had returned often and was always treated like a prince by his family. For those of you well-traveled in the third world, you know there is no feast like the ones prepared for visitors from afar.

Our walk was in some senses light– we laughed and retold the same stories about Doug. As big-hearted as he apparently was, it was such a relief to have the liabilities he carried off of us. Ironically, now with no truck, drivers, or cash, we felt freed to actually help.
But as we walked we also bore further witness to the massive destruction of the city. We walked past one collapsed building after another. Everywhere there were signs that said, “Nous avons besoin d’aide” — “we need help.” As we climbed over crumbled cinder blocks, splintered wood, and exposed wires, we walked past a small cement building that had remained relatively intact. It was sandwiched between two partially collapsed structures, with the spray-painted scrawling in English “God is good.” It reminded me of Ben’s mother the previous day who, on our return home from our long day as a make-shift EMT crew, threw her hands in the air and said in English “Thaaank you God, thank you!” waving her arms. I also remembered the early morning praise songs. I wondered if I’d have had the same perspective in the face of such adversity. Truly, I admired the strength of their faith.

Partially because of the condition of the road, and partially because of our frequent stops, the walk down hill took far longer then I imagined. Jakob, the Swedish photographer, was texting me that he was getting ready to take off. By the time we arrived at General Hospital, he was gone, and the gates to the entrance of the overcrowded compound were packed with Haitians pleading their cases and begging to be admitted. Some had family members with urgent needs, other just hoped that they would get some water or food.
Their hopes were likely in vain as I later discovered that water inside General Hospital was scarce both for the patients who desperately needed it, and the medical staff that were at risk of getting dehydrated as well. Ben and I managed to work our way through the mass of people to a narrow opening in the gate where a few bewildered U.S. soldiers blocked our entry, informing us that the press was being evacuated and no more people were being allowed in without some kind of identification as medical personnel. We told them we were there to help, not take pictures, and they hesitantly acquiesced.

As could be expected part of the hospital had completely collapsed– in fact the nursing education building was flattened. We were told that more then a hundred young nursing students had been crushed. The horrifying smell of the bodies inside wafted throughout the nearby facilities.

Parts of the the hospital complex that had been deemed sturdy were being used as operating rooms, and pre-op and inpatient units. Most patients that weren’t been currently treated were placed outside, where a miniature tent-city had been formed to shade them from the blazing mid-day sun. What formed over the top of the maze of dilapidated hospital beds was a massive network of blankets and tarps, strung with ropes to trees and poles, forming a collective quilt of meager covering.

Ben and I split up and agreed to meet back at the front in few minutes once we’d surveyed the scene. I walked through the constant crowds of people and took in the whole scene. I stopped a couple of times to take a few pictures, but for the most part kept my camera in my bag. Sure enough, journalists were slowly being pushed out. I watched an Australian news crew conclude an interview with a doctor who was clearly in a hurry to get back to his patients. I watched some photographers steal some pictures of a few desperate Haitians, who looked up with big eyes that said, at least in my mind, “Fine, take a picture. I don’t even care. Just take your picture and go.”

One journalist particularly caught my eye, however. She was kneeling alongside her translator at eye level with a patient. I didn’t catch the exact conversation, but her mannerisms with the young man were sincere. Every once in a while she’d tilt her head and say something to the patient, and then look to her translator. The young man would answer and she’d jot a few notes down, hardly breaking eye contact. After what seemed like a great deal of time, she finally lifted her camera and made a gesture that said, “May I?” He nodded, she snapped a couple photos, glancing up at him between shots.

That, I thought, is how it’d done. Make the personal connection. Give them dignity. And ultimately, give them the option to opt out. I realize this isn’t always plausible– and some would find me naive to think that it’s really ever plausible in such circumstances. Maybe that’s true. But it’s ideal. And the interaction not only impacted me, but impressed me as the best example of how to be a good photojournalist.
Before I even had the opportunity to head back to our agreed upon meeting spot, Ben found me. He was heading out with an ambulance crew to pick up people in need of medical care to take them to Sunapi. Ben asked me anxiously (the team was waiting for him) if I wanted to go. I told him no. I decided I wanted to stay and see how I could be of help at the hospital. We had no way of keeping in touch as Ben’s cell phone wasn’t working, so we agreed we would just meet up at Villa Creole later that night. And just like that, we parted ways.
I wasn’t really sure where to be– or who to talk to. There were people at the hospital from organizations from all over the world, including multiple red crosses, and dozens of NGOs. So after making a brief circle of the the ground, getting a feel for the layout of things, I approached a random doctor who simply appeared to be more in charge then other doctors around. Illusion or not, he was the man to talk to. I told him I was a photographer, had no medical background, but was at least a healthy body and would do anything he wanted me to do. I told him I was putting my camera down for the day.

Without a moment of hesitation he slapped a badge on me– he was with the International Medical Corps– and gave me a job: assisting a young doctor named Patrick to put together a new pediatrics ward in a portion of the hospital that hadn’t collapsed. Along with Patrick we assembled a group of young Haitian volunteers and began begging the stout, sharp-tongued Haitian woman who operated as the pharmacist to give us a supplies to stock the ward. Since supplies were terribly scarce, she took her job very seriously as the gatekeeper between doctors in various roles that tried to beg and coerce her into giving them more of this or that. By the end of the day, I’d sweet talked her into giving us pretty much everything on our list, and I think she still liked me when it was all said and done.

Patrick could not have been much older then me. He looked to be 29 years old. But back in California he was an emergency room MD who split his time between the states, and doing work with IMC in Iraq. He was friendly and hard-working and impressed me immediately.
The team of young Haitians that were with me spoke no English, and I no Creole, but we sweated together all day, gathering usable hospitable beds and mattresses from empty, dingy corners of the hospital and corralling them in two large rooms at the top of a stairway in the back portion of the hospital. As soon as a few beds were set up, doctors and nurses were bombarding us with requests to bring children in. There was simply no room anywhere else. Frantically, I continued to haul filthy mattresses in, dust them off, and cover them with hospital gowns so they could start laying children on them.

For the first hour or so of working, there was no doctor in the new pediatrics ward we were assembling. But finally one arrived. She was frantic, clearly stressed. I did everything I could to help her set the unit up comfortably so she could make rounds and give proper care. Her name was Dr. Conde, and she was a Haitian-American from Brooklyn. Other nurses that accompanied her were Haitian-born as well. One of them lived blocks away from me in Harlem.

At first I don’t think Dr. Conde knew what to make of me. I didn’t tell her I was a photographer, just a volunteer with the International Medical Corps– which was true. But the longer I was with her, rushing in and out of the pharmacy, grabbing meager supplies when I could, and helping transport children from stretchers onto beds, the more she warmed to me. And she was a good doctor.

Finally the two rooms that made up the new ward were filled with young children– many of them no older then three– some of them literally minutes old. I was hot and incredibly thirsty when I glanced out the window and saw that the sun was sinking below the horizon. I was losing light, and there was no electricity in the building. I asked Dr. Conde if it would be okay if I took a few pictures. “Of course!” There was no more work for me to do, so I grabbed my camera and made a single round through the ward.

Most of the children I was photographing had seen me around all day. As far as they were concerned, I was a doctor. So when I approached their beds with a smile, there was a warmness already between us. I followed suit with the journalist I had seen earlier. Whenever I took a photo, I made the “May I?” gesture. And sometimes I would even get a smile. There were children with recently amputated limbs, severe burns and lacerations, struggling newborns, head injuries, and on and on.

After I finished taking pictures, I asked the nurses if there was anything else I could do. They had one more request: there were some limited pain medications being given, but the nurses were starting worry. As dusk passed, and darkness set in, they were deeply concerned that in the night, with no pain meds, no one would sleep. That the children would cry in agony all night, exhaust themselves, and exhaust the staff. So I set off on my last mission for the day.

I ran down to the pharmacy to make one last minute inquiry, but found the doors locked and bolted shut. I made a few circles of the compound. Most volunteers had left. The medical help at boiled down to the skeleton crew. But I caught a glimpse of Patrick hauling a man in on a stretcher.

“Patrick!” He looked over at me, clearly exhausted. “We need acedomedophine for the kids.”

He pointed me in the direction of a storage closet that might still be open. “We have some donated supplies we’ve been hiding in there. See if you can get to them.”

As I was walking away something dawned on me and my heart sank. “Patrick!” I called after him again. He glanced over his shoulder at me. “Where are you staying?”

“Villa Creole, in Petionville.” My spirits rose again. “Perfect! Me too. Can I get a ride back there?”

“Of course.”

With that I hurried off to the IMC horde, which turned out to be a few meager boxes of random, mostly useless, medical supplies. But there was adult-strength acedomedophine which could be administered in small doses to the kids. I grabbed a box of it and ran back up to the nurses who almost kissed me.

When I left the ward, it was completely dark. The nurses were making rounds with flashlights and getting ready for another long night shift.
I hurried back to the IMC makeshift headquarters on site and barely made the vanload that was heading back up the hill to Villa Creole. At this point I was well past my deadline for meeting Ben, so I hoped he hadn’t somehow left without me. I piled in with the International Medical Corps crew, who I decided were a pretty likable bunch, and we slowly bounced and bumped our way up hill back to Petionville.
When I arrived at Petionville I managed to scrounge a bottle of water. I pulled two Clif bars out of my bag and sat down at a table by the pool. Virtually everyone, doctors and press alike, had arrived back at the hotel base and were buzzing around me. Ben, however, was nowhere to be seen.

After sitting alone for a few minutes munching on a carrot-cake flavored Clif bar, the IMC crew found me and pulled chairs up around my table. Patrick plopped an ice-cold Red Stripe down in front of me. Most of the day I had been keenly aware of my inability to really help any of the patients at General Hospital. But it was nice to feel appreciated and, more importantly, to feel a sense of community. I sat for a while and chatted with them as they recounted stories from the previous days, as well as from their time in Iraq and around the world.
Around 10 PM, I received a text from my friend Jonathan. Jonathan was a friend of mine whom I’d known for years. We originally met because of a trip I took in 2006 to Uganda. I had stayed with him in Lira, Uganda where he was working to start an orphanage, so we were used to seeing each other in the context of the third world. He traveled far more then I did to impoverished places all over the globe, producing video pieces for various organizations. The night I was contemplating going to Haiti, I had called Jonathan.
“Hey man” I had said, “What are you up to?”

“Oh, just got back to Orange County. Hopefully I’ll be back here for a while.” He hesitated. “Well, actually that’s not true. I’m possibly going to Haiti tomorrow.”

“No way! Me too. That’s actually why I’m calling!”

Jonathan informed me he was waiting for funding for a possible trip to Port au Prince. We exchanged information and he gave me some leads on contacts in Haiti. One of them was an orphanage called Child Hope International.

Jonathan is a rare gem. Once in Uganda we had been driving to meet someone at a local restaurant. It was 10 o’clock at night and we were already hours late. But yet at the site of some street children he recognized, he pulled the van over and spent a half an hour catching up with the boys, making sure they had a place to stay, making sure they had food. He had a preferential view to the poorest– often quoting Psalm 68:5 which calls God the “father of the fatherless.” Fatherless himself, Jonathan has a massive heart for the orphans of the world, and he’s devoted his young life so far to that end.

Jonathan had been to Haiti before and had a lot of quality footage of conditions before the quake– specifically of the orphan situation– which was something few news organizations had. So now Jonathan was working closely with CNN on a documentary on which he later became co-producer, along with CNN’s Soledad O’brien.

Throughout my trip so far, I had been texting back and forth with Jonathan– mostly for general news and to share tips. But now he was texting me, anxious to meet up. I told him I was at Villa Creole. He said he’d been there before and was not far down the road. In a matter of a half an hour he, along with his girlfriend Lindsay, who was there for Food for the Hungry, arrived at Villa Creole.

I was elated to see them. I gave Jonathan a bear hug. He and Lindsay looked at the buzzing makeshift newsroom/compound around them and then assessed me. I was more of a wreck then when I had woken up. Now covered in more dirt, the physical labor of the day had caused me to sweat, the dirt and filth on me to cake and smear, and I’m sure I smelled atrocious.

As they started asking me questions about my situation, I started to become aware of its’ bizarreness. We walked outside of the hotel to the dark driveway where their car was parked.

“Where have you been sleeping, brother?” Jonathan asked me.

“Well, wherever. Last night I slept in the back of a truck.”

“How much money do you have?”

That I didn’t know. I pulled out my wallet and slid the remaining cash out of it. It was then that I realized I had only eight dollars. I didn’t say the amount out loud, they saw it.

“You only have eight bucks?” Lindsay sounded startled.

Well, I had more then that in my bank account obviously, I retorted, but there weren’t exactly a plethora of financial institutions from which to withdraw money.

“Maybe we shouldn’t hang out in the dark out here too long,” I said, “last night there were gunshots over by our truck.”

“Adam,” Jonathan was concerned, “you slept outside while there were gunshots?” The situation was actually starting to strike us as a little humorous. It was apparent to them that I hadn’t really thought about the situation, and we all three laughed a little about it. I probably did look pretty silly– gaunt, filthy, with only eight dollars in my wallet, in a ravaged country far from home, and beaming wildly to them as I retold my adventures over the last few days as if it was all part of a hilarious lucid dream.

“Well, you know something, so far God has pretty well taken care of me,” I said. “I haven’t needed anything.”

“Well maybe us arriving is God taking care of you” Lindsay mused. Almost immediately after she said those words, we heard the “pop-pop” of further gunshots not far from us. We hit the ground. While flat against the ground ducking for cover, with Jonathan’s car next to us, Jonathan smiled over at me, “You’re coming with us.” I agreed.

First, I needed to leave word of where I’d gone in case Ben arrived. At this point it was late, almost eleven. I talked to several of the journalists that had seen me with Ben, as well as the front desk. I told them to tell Ben that I was going to the Plaza Hotel and would be back in the morning. They all agreed, and I climbed in to Lindsay and Jonathan’s car and headed down the road to the Plaza.

The Plaza was a whole other world. It was a fully functioning, fully intact, first-world style hotel. The first thing we did was drop our bags off in their air-conditioned room. I marveled at the amenities. Then we headed over to the hotel restaurant. I filled my plate with food from the buffet and found a seat. Jonathan and Lindsay joined me as well as a young California guy from a small local non-profit. Shortly after I began eating, Soledad O’brien and her producer sat down with us. Everyone began recounting the devastation they’d seen. But mostly, conversation transferred to politics, bureaucracy, and philosophies about the plight of Haiti. As we chatted, I became suddenly insecure of my appearance. My jeans were covered in dust and my fingernails were black. Everyone else here was showered, and under the circumstances, pretty well groomed.

After dinner, I went back to Jonathan and Lindsay’s hotel room and took my first real shower in Haiti. It was, needless to say, so refreshing. I looked down at my feet and watched the gray water drain away.

Before heading off to bed, Jonathan and I went up to the deck overlooking the massive tent city outside in the main square. Anderson Cooper was concluding his evening broadcast. We watched in awe as Cooper did what he does best. It was such a strange site to stand twenty feet from a CNN broadcast, giant floodlights illuminating the tent-city backdrop that represented such tragedy in a country so neglected and spat upon by the rest of the world.

I went to bed early. Jonathan had to meet with CNN producers about his piece, to review footage and talk logistics. I curled up inside my sleeping bag and slept soundly until about 6 AM when the second earthquake shook the grounds of the hotel.

I have clearly been silent here.

In fact, I was shocked to see that the last time I posted was on May 24, 2010.  So, for all of June and some few days in May and July, I just haven’t been present in the blogosphere.  Some time in the middle of June was the two year anniversary of the day I posted for the first time.  Since then I’ve posted some 559 posts.  Blogging, for me, is an outlet.  But mostly a creative outlet.  In general (but with some exceptions) I tend to keep it pretty professional.  Yes, the things I write and the pictures I post are reflective of my life.  But this website is primarily a forum for sharing images, and less a place for spewing my deepest thoughts and desires.

That is why, my friends, I went 40 days without posting.  Because sometimes life takes over, and what can be very therapeutic (blogging) is instead a complete drag.

In other words, when things get heavy for me, sometimes I’m just silent.  But fear not… I’m here.  I’m back.  Ready for action.  After 36 days away from New York, I’m back.  I did some spring cleaning today (since I missed out at the end of May), and I’m now sitting on my bed, with a terrier at my side, on top of a pile of freshly laundered sheets, pillow cases, and duvet covers, thinking.  Feeling relieved.  Feeling like I’m getting back to reality.  Feeling the heaviness start to lift.

I’ll keep things generally brief.  I’m terrible at that… but it’s worth a shot.

For those of you that regularly peruse the images on this blog, Nathan Pelz will be a familiar name.  Or at least a familiar face:

Back in May (oh my gosh– has it really been this long??) it was discovered that Nate had a baseball-sized tumor in his abdomen.  After visiting with an oncologist, Nate and his wife Holly made an appointment for an out-patient needle biopsy for Friday, May 28, 2010.  It was supposed to be quick, relatively painless.

With some freedom in my schedule during that time, I flew out to Phoenix to hang out with Holly and Nate, two of my dearest friends, as they awaited the results of the pathology report.  However, by the time I woke up at 6:00 AM the morning after Nate’s biopsy to head to Laguardia, I had a frantic text message from Holly that Nate had been kept at the hospital overnight and had been in extreme pain.  She was, understandably, terrified.

It would be a project beyond what I’m capable of completing right now to try and transcribe how the next 6 weeks played out.  Your best bet is to head over to the blog we created where you can read and see much of the details of the journey Holly and Nate have been through. I told Holly’s sister, Hillary, that I couldn’t write anything on here until now.  Whatever I would have written would have been charged with way too much melodrama– something I’m often prone to when writing about things that profoundly effect me.  So I’ll refrain from being too verbose with the exception of a few minor points…

When I was in Haiti in January I held a 7 year old boy with a gangrene severed foot while he was anesthetized (needle-to-bone) for amputation.  He weeped, clawed at my neck, cried out, and eventually wet himself in my arms.  In the hospital in Phoenix, I spent four nights up with Nate.  The type of pain he was feeling, I was told by one doctor, is some of the worst pain a human can experience.  I stayed up through the night watching Nate sweating, shaking, yelling.  And there was nothing I could do about it.  It reminded me of that boy in Haiti.

Even now, I have a hard time thinking or talking about those nights in Phoenix.  As much as this last month and a half has been a roller coaster , those were by far the worst parts for me– culminating on the fifth day.  It was then that Nate sat his brother and I down in the hospital room to tell us, with a trembling voice, that he had an aggressive tumor that was wrapped around his superior mesenteric artery, that it was inoperable, and that it was probably going to eventually kill him.  I’ll never ever forget that moment.  Only thirteen months after Nate and I shared the burden of carrying our twenty-six year-old friends’ casket, I was now watching Nate face his own mortality.  And as I sat in the hospital room with Nate, many of the same emotions from that friends’ funeral started flooding back.

But at the risk of continuing my reputation as a plot-spoiler, I can tell you that this story has a happy ending.  However, before things went from bad back to better, there was an interim of waiting.  And during that waiting I saw some pretty powerful things happen.

After being taken by air ambulance from Phoenix to Indiana University Hospital in Indianapolis, I drove Nate’s car, along with Jon’s brother and Holly’s good friend Allison, to Indiana.  On the morning we arrived, a group of people crowded into Nate’s hospital room to pray for him.

I remember he was looking frail and broken.  He was still battling severe pain, was confused by the many unanswered questions, and overwhelmed by the possibility of the worst.  Yet we gathered, a scattered and awkward community, and joined hands around him.  We were a complicated crew.  There was certainly some broken relationships– perhaps some poisoned relationships.  But we all had one thing in common– the desire for a miracle.  I looked around the room.  I knew all those people quite well.  I knew the brokenness. I also knew how all these people loved Nate.

And then Nate’s father, Dave, asked him if he had any thing he wanted to say.

Nate was exhausted.  But he managed to say a few words. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I know that God wants to use this to heal broken relationships.”

I guess I don’t know how to feel about everything that happened.  I mean, primarily I’m just thankful that my friend, who I thought might be dead by now, is very much alive.  But when things like this happen I’m always knocking my head against the wall, trying to figure out in the midst of the aftermath– “How should I now live?”

And I know it’s not about me.  It’s not even about Nate.  But it feels right to look inward before I look outward.  So that’s what I’m doing.  Now that my feet are back on the ground, that’s my starting point.

In the mean time, please check out Nate and Holly’s complete story.  Read the comments.  See how a community of people rallied and prayed, and how things went from bad, to worse, to better, to worse, to best.  You can also check out local news coverage of their journey here.

Consider my silence here broken.