Day 166 of 365: Test Shooting

Today was my first test shoot through the agency. The studio was a five-minute walk from my old university and, even with the crappy weather, I still enjoyed driving into Boston and going through my old stomping grounds.


I couldn't help but chuckle at how life can come full circle. Back in the day, I lived on one end of the orange line, took said orange line to the opposite end, all the while trying to catch up on classwork, keeping on eye and ear out for when the train reached Northeastern University. And now, here I was again, going from one end to the other, nose in a textbook, ready to get off when the train pulled into the Northeastern campus. Only this time it was an anatomy textbook and I was getting off at Ruggles only to walk in the opposite direction of campus to a photographer's studio.


Maybe it's just some version of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon going on, but I love it when life ripples back like that. Like when I saw a former student -- we'll call Kevin -- and his mother. Kevin was in my room when I taught in the Boston area for a grand total of two weeks. He was violently opposed to being in school; so violent that his tantrums and screams actually drove me to tears in the middle of class one day (lest anyone think that preschool teaching is all ABCs and snuggles). But there he was, with his mom, laughing as they raced to cross the street to catch the bus in time. I was maybe two weeks out from quitting my job in the Boston area, and I couldn't help but remark on how different he was when he wasn't being separated from his mom for the first time ever. Like him, I was infinitely happier outside of that particular classroom as well.


Again, I might be looking for these moments so much that I actually start creating them myself (why did I choose the trainride to read my textbook, if only because I knew that I was getting off at Ruggles and decided -- consciously or unconsciously -- it would be like old times?). But I'm okay with that. I live for that type of sentimentality. Those moments of retrospection and reflection. When everything seems to make some weird type of sense.


So, pseudo-Baader-Meinhof or no pseudo-Baader-Meinhof, I love that it happens. I love when things come full circle, even if I end up trudging five minutes through freezing rain, showing up at the studio looking like a drowned rat.