Four months ago I was in Maine, where I spent the better part of three days inside a one-room building in the woods. I wasn’t held prisoner there, which is sort of the way that first sentence sounded when I re-read it.

Rather, it was photography workshop, an immersive look at the South Solon Meetinghouse. I posted some photos from here earlier, but it’s taken me some time/space to be ready to think more about that time. The schedule for the trip was ridiculous when compared with what I had going on at the very same time: I was in the middle of writing a huge grant at my (real) job and didn’t really have the time to give to this endeavor. But this was a place that I’d wanted to see for myself and I didn’t plan on letting the opportunity slide by without me. We were a small, compatible group. Our work there swung from quiet writing time, to solo photo-taking, to helping each other get “the” shot we were chasing, to giving our own unique* interpretations on the frescoes, to laughing, to crying, to just…being there.

It was what I needed to do. That grant could (and did) wait. And I came home a different (and maybe better) person than before.

South Solon Meetinghouse
Solon, Maine
photographed 3.19.2026