The trail was warm, dry and shaded. I noted the flora and fauna with my 35mm Pentax camera in hand. I was eleven, just embarking on what would become a lifelong passion. In those early days, I would lay in my mom’s garden and photograph the flowers or hike to a waterfall with my dad, jumping the guardrails to capture the perfect shot. As the years have passed, I’ve had several cameras and countless adventures shuttered first onto film, later onto memory card.

As a boy mom with a husband that gathers hobbies as a hobby, there’s no shortage of passions for my boys to inherit. Hunting, fishing, canoeing, snowboarding, camping — sometimes I wonder if I’ll get to pass on my passions, but it’s certainly a gift for our boys to inherit the joy of an outdoor lifestyle from their dad. 

For our youngest son’s fifth birthday, we gifted a camera. The green camo motif and the waterproof casing ensured at least brief entertainment. A month later we were at our family’s camp where the boys often do all the “Daddy” hobbies to their hearts’ content. But one morning when I left the camp in the dew covered time of day, my son cried, “Wait for me, Mama. I want to come, too.” So we trailed out of camp, both of us toting our cameras, capturing the flora and fauna of the forest floor.

And that morning, I realized I had written myself out. I had dismissed the value of my passions as a way to connect with my sons. That morning was a gift of remembering my passions aren’t just for me — they are connection points to others.

For the next few months, our oldest declared he really wanted a camera too, so for his seventh birthday a blue camo camera was purchased. One night that week the boys fly fished with their dad, but they also had their cameras, capturing each other’s catches and shuttering their own adventures into their memory cards.

It really doesn’t matter if they grow to love photography or even snowboarding or fishing. What matters is that they see the joy of cultivating passions, that they see their dad and their mom finding time to do things they love. The boys reminded me that my passions have a place, too. A place for me to take leave of the family and do something on my own, and a place for me to cultivate a shared passion between my them and I.

While my husband and the boys fly fished and photographed, I did what I love, too. I captured a few too many photos of the people I love most doing something that brought them joy while the light was good and the scene was stunning.