| I once asked
my father-in-law, "Am I an Outlaw?" Because he loved me so much, he
answered, "No, that's only the Forkers." But in the parlance of my
husband's family, an Outlaw is anyone who has married into them.
Forker, Klimowicz, Mercuro, Ray...We've all joined this large family,
so big that the first time I met them I wept, saying, "there is just so
many of them." They have embraced me and I am not spared the teasing,
noise, chaos, and laughter. In comparison, my family is small, low-key,
maybe not quiet but more likely to read by a pond than wrestle in the
baby pool. I was so overwhelmed by the state of having two families, by the travel between Christmas in
New Jersey and Hanukah in New York, that I started photographing both of them, recording the small moments that create the texture of our lives. At family gatherings, vacations, even in the midst of loss there are notes of togetherness, of joy, of living. |
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