What’s even more difficult than meeting up with an old co-worker is stealing some time with a new mother. Hannah is both and also a friend so we kept trying until we found the time. She suggested we go to a Toronto edition of Slideluck Potshow, a name which she informed me is a “spoonerism”.

Hannah is a writer so she knows these things. Though when asked by a stranger at the event what she does, she shrugged and said “I’m a writer but not really that much right now.” I scoffed but did the same thing an hour later when she introduced me as a photographer. I always qualify that with “I used to be.” Fully embracing an artistic title is tricky for me.

But Hannah is a writer and these days mainly documents her own motherhood experiences. I told her that every time I write a new entry for this blog I think “why should anyone care.” She told me that acknowledgment is half the battle. We’re both people who have been seriously trying to grow since we worked together making mostly mindless television for teenagers. While I moved on to entertaining older demographics, she went to NYC to study creative writing, got married and had a baby. Now she reads books on the challenges of women wanting it all and I work my ass off and worry I have nothing.

But standing in the sweltering hot room watching photographic montages set to pretty great tunes was hugely inspiring and made me feel like I want to be a photographer again. Or rather, I am a photographer again. It made me feel good. And I think getting out of the house made her feel good too.