I took a lot of pictures today. I took some of the walk Anthony and I took around Meadow Vista. I took some of the berry bushes along the side of the road and the sunlight. I screenshot the homepage of the YouTube channel I subscribed to earlier today. I took a selfie of us on our walk. I took a picture of Ant working on homework.

But my camera roll does not accurately represent our day.

We finished our Romans Study this morning in class. We listened to a family share their story of the missionary work they’re doing in Indonesia. No pictures taken.

At 4 o’clock a friend came over to talk video games with Anthony and cook dinner. All three of us were in the kitchen, cooking steak, sauteing asparagus, boiling broccoli, and washing dishes. We sat around the table together. We laughed, we talked. No pictures taken.

The above mentioned friend left and Anthony I took a walk through the neighborhood and through town.

We walked back up our driveway with a gallon carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream. I went inside to freeze it and Anthony headed up towards the main house to invite our friends down for ice cream. We sat around our dining room table, talking about cats and their upcoming move. No pictures.

We walked back up to the main house to look at their dining room table. Then we sat in the corner of their front deck, catching up and chatting with our friend, in the glow of the porch light.

The sky got darker, the night got cooler, the mosquitoes were laying low.

No pictures taken.

No pictures taken of faces or smiles or laughter.

On the one hand, this is fine. And I might be overthinking it because it could mean I was caught up in the moment. I was present. I was fully there with our people. Not everything has to be documented, right?

On the other hand–I know that’s not the reason.

There are no pictures because I’m too self-conscious to stick my camera up while people are talking and have them notice to snap a picture. I overthink taking a picture. When, instead, a couple clicks and the moment would be captured.

This time in faces and bodies and smiles.

Pretty, styled Instagram accounts would argue in favor of that 7 o’clock evening sunlight and the way the way the berry vines creep out onto the dusty road or that little cluster of blackberries.

But tonight you get dirty dishes.

Because those dirty dishes, and the clean ones drying in the sink next to them, represent the people we spent most of our Sunday with. They represent a part of the people who have become Our People in the four years we’ve been married and living in the Auburn area.

It’s the people who matter. The ones who choose to hang out on a hot afternoon in your house with no AC and cook dinner with you. The ones who accept your invitation to eat mint chocolate chip ice cream. The ones you can stay late into the after-hours of Magic Nights and Devo Nights and talk about books and watch home videos with. The ones you stand in a bathroom with to watch an almost 18-month old brush her teeth. The ones who laugh at your jokes (What do you call an underwater dog?). The ones who hang out at the laundromat with you on a Saturday (Here’s lookin’ at you, Mom and Dad). The ones who tell you the crazy laundromat stories.

I need to be better about taking pictures of the people in our lives because while a single moment can be captured, the feelings and emotions and the stories and the jokes are as well. It’s all right there in a tiny square. A piece of your story and theirs, a memory, your people.

So, let’s work on loving our people this week. In whatever way that looks like to you and to them–a picture, a card, a bowl of ice cream, pizza, a car ride, a video game, just chatting, the joke of the day.

I’m going to work on taking pictures of the people in our life and us taking pictures with the people in our life. Because the days we spend with our people are some of my favorites and I want to remember those days for years to come.