For those who leave and those we leave behind.

Thread.

These are some of my pictures from Afghanistan.

The children in this thread didn’t work with us. They will not get out but Afghans are resilient. They will survive.

To me these kids symbolize hope in the face of fear. I want to share these to put faces to the abstract debates about whether we should welcome refugees. And to give a sense of who those who will one day themselves lead Afghanistan.

1. I’m going to use this to highlight what military folks call second and third order effects: consequences.

To the extent Afghanistan has essential services like running water, sewage, electricity - the Afghans who ran and maintained all of it worked with coalition forces.

https://twitter.com/McFaul/status/1430250204851179520

2. All of those folks are eligible to leave and probably are. No doubt the Taliban went to turn on the lights, use them phones, hook up to the internet and couldn’t because those who maintained it left. That doesn’t just affect them it affects everyone in Afghanistan.

Our Wedding Photographer

Thread

My partner and I are getting married soon. We initially planned to wed last summer until Covid coughed all over our dreams.

Though we’ve been engaged for two years we decided to do an engagement shoot with @AimeeCustis our wedding photographer We spent years advocating for marriage equality but it’s one thing to be activists and another to look for vendors for one’s own wedding. We wanted a photographer who wasn’t just OK with same-sex couples but experienced, someone who would celebrate with us. We found Aimee.