EXCERPT

The following is a collection of my notes over the last fifteen years.

Notes on womanhood, on success, on falling in and out of love, on sanity, on thoughtfulness, on motherhood, on failures and joys and the deepest sorrows. On fairness in life, on finding yourself, on being a good person, on finding good people to share your life with. On building a career. On living with integrity. Notes on virtue, on the lack of virtue. How not to hurt people, how not to get hurt yourself. The multitudes of meanings in life. On how to live. Notes on how to share this world with billions of other people, many whom we have nothing in common with but our humanity. Instructions For Living, in some sense.

Having my daughter allowed me to take a soft pause in this beautifully full life, and reflect on my life to date. What I found is a collection of stories, experiences, lessons, prayers, beliefs and notes on living, gathered from the wide cross-section of people I’ve encountered in the last fifteen years as a globally-travelling photojournalist. The result is what you have before you - ‘The Field Notes Series’ - the closest thing I could ever hope to create as Instructions For Living to pass on to my daughter.

May it be a daily vitamin for your healthy living, a love letter to her and to life.

I return to these pages myself, often, to keep myself afloat.

I add to them often, as well.

Anthony Bourdain said it best - ‘Maybe that’s enlightenment enough : to know there is no final resting place for the mind. No moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom is realising how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go …’

It’s my hope that these pages serve as an ode to how far we have to go; small and unwise, but together.

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