Tommee. In the rain.

I met Tommee when I was photographing the rehearsals and performance of the One Billion Rising V-Day event. She was recovering from an injury, wearing a knee brace, but she danced with great joy. We've only met twice since February because we've been so busy. Today we went for a walk in the forest. In the rain.

Nearing 70, she has retired from a career in social service and has been an activist all these years for civil rights, peace, and women's rights. Tommee is still passionately active: in the Quaker church, in her garden, in feral cat rescue, with her partner, with a program for unhoused people, and with her own development. She and two other women are cohorts in a Quaker initiative called Way of the Spirit; they check in daily and encourage each other to grow where they need to go, to remember their intentions. We talked a great blaze of words in the wet green woods. We compared adventures, told stories, asked questions, and marveled at each other's nerve.

Before we met at 11 a.m., my day had already been a whirlwind. At 6 a.m. Bella's mother called and woke me up. She'd come home for an overnight during a break in her tour, and they were on the way to the airport so she could rejoin the tour when Seth's car had a flat tire. In the rain.

I threw on some clothes and drove out to meet them, loaded Cristina and her bag into my car and drove like a demon through morning rush hour traffic on slick roads to get to the plane. She made it, just barely, sprinting down the corridor. Wonderful! I called Seth from the airport to tell him she'd made the plane, and he asked me to come back for him and Bella. He'd called roadside assistance and got a mechanic who jacked up the car the wrong way and took off the tire just before the car fell off the jack, so the undercarriage of the car was damaged and the axle didn't look too good either. It's one of those fine new high-tech cars with all kinds of sensors and sensitive computery stuff on it. Not so wonderful.

I drove back through rush hour traffic as fast as I could in the opposite direction, but when I got to the place where I'd left them, they weren't there. The roadside assistance guy had insisted, "Your car's just fine, go ahead and drive it. Trust me." Seth whipped back, "You can't change a tire properly. Why am I going to trust you?" Brilliant. Seth got the car towed to the dealership, where he was waiting with an angry Bella.

By that time it was nearly 9 a.m. and I had not yet had my first cup of tea.

Tomorrow Seth leaves for a short gig, and I'll move into their place with Bella for our first two overnights together without either of her parents. I'll have Seth's car, which presumably will be working again, and I'll bring Bella back to my place a couple of times a day to take care of Kismet, who will no doubt be hiding under the furniture.

I leave you with this message from Tommee: "We don't get to choose the events of our lives. Things just come to us. But how we respond to what comes to us: that's where the choice is." Just so. Her hat, by the way, says "Pro-Choice Alaska."