Entry no. 5: Conversations with friends
wearing puffer jacket from Dina’s closet; red tights and beaded jewelry from model’s closet.
Some sort of Semi-dialogue on the awareness and loss of love.
creative direction by Francisca ehileme
subject photography and collage by nma nwokoro
styled by Francisca ehileme
love love love
I’m honestly not sure what my first memory of feeling love is or was, and I kept thinking about this all through this past fall-winter. I was taking a walk one Sunday morning in October when, coincidentally “Can we do this over” by Naomi Sharon started playing, and almost instantly feeling and remembering the love I had just lost recently. Naomi’s voice on this song and at that moment -while the autumn wind blew- invoked a train of thought that got me wondering whether every person has the ability of knowing they are loved while they have it or, can they only notice they were loved just cause they lost it?
Joni Mitchell sang “don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone” and the older I get plus the more experiences I have, the less I think of this phrase in the romantic sense. Don’t get me wrong the romantic understanding is still there. How could it not be when dishonesty, cheating and manipulation are what most relationships fall victim to in our society. However, it is no longer the centre of my understanding of this phrase. Now, I understand it in the sense of being able to appreciate other details of life. For example the ability to appreciate the love from people in your life while they are still on this earth, to pursue your interests when it is possible to, even the ability to appreciate the memories of the life you have lived so far while you still have the ability to remember. But, I digress because Joni’s music has been played a lot lately.
I do not know why I chose to follow up this thought about awareness of love that came to me one random morning, because I believe I have a complicated relationship with it or rather a completely different understanding of it compared to people I have come across. I also believe I am the last person to ever start a conversation about/around love. However, it got me wondering if early memories of love being expressed to a person when they were younger, as well as seeing it expressed to others, really does shape how much that person is are aware of it. So I asked myself two questions:
wearing faux leather coat from Archival Studios.
1) What can you remember as your first memory of feeling loved? 2) When was a time you felt like you lost love, and what happened to make you feel that way?
I could not answer them at first so, I asked friends and some were keen on sharing their responses with me
friend 1: “Honestly, one of the first times I really felt something close to love was through consistency. Someone choosing to stay, to talk to me, to understand me over time. It wasn't about one moment, it was about showing up again and again, even from a distance.That kind of presence made things feel real in a way I didn't expect. For a time I felt like | lost love, there was a time I stepped back from something I valued, mostly because the timing didn't feel right. It made me realize that sometimes it's not about loosing the connection, but about whether it ever gets the chance to grow.
friend 2: “I would say the first time I felt like I lost love was after I lost my dad. It was a love I never really thought about or realized until l was looking at old pictures when I went back home. I noticed that in all my baby pictures that he was in, he had the brightest smile out of everyone there, even when I was crying he would still have this genuine smile. Then it hit, I had really lost love and I didn't even realize.” “For the first memory of feeling loved, I'm not too sure but it would be my 18th suprise birthday. I have never been surprised before, so it was a really touching feeling. It felt really nice to know that my family cared about me so much to take out if their time to plan a surprise for me”
friend 3: “So for me I think the feeling of love wasn't something that was discrete, it's just always been there since l've been a kid, from my parents and siblings. So I'd say l've felt love since I gained consciousness.” “About the feeling of loosing love I think the closest l've come to that is with relationships. But I can't blame the people because we were really young and I'm not sure they even understood anything at that point.”
friend 4: ”First, I have to say that my perspective as a child vs an adult has drastically changed. As a child I felt immense love from my Dad because he never laid a finger on me, always gave me money and generally never really complained about me. So I genuinely took that for love and took discipline from my mum as hate.”
friend 5: “The memory I think back to was the walk I had with my aunt. It was late August in 2013. We were at the wedding reception of someone my aunt vaguely knew and whom we hardly knew somewhere out in Brooklyn. My mom's jewelry got stolen that night and I was (wrongly) blamed. After we got back to my aunt's apartment, she took me on a midnight walk around the block where she listened to me vent and told me it wasn’t my fault. This was the first time when I was a kid that I felt really heard and validated by an adult in my life. I think back to that memory and think about the saying that “to be heard is to be loved,” and that encapsulates that moment. I’ll forever be grateful for my aunt and that walk.” “A recent time I lost love was when one of my Aunts passed away last June.”
wearing wool coat from Nma’s closet; belt and beaded jewelry from model’s closet.
wearing faux leather coat from Archival Studios; brooch from Nma’s closet; tank and skirt from model’s closet.
CONCLUSION.
Far be it from me to want to analyze these responses as that will not be the case, and it is also not the point of this. But, after reading through everyone's reply, it’s not hard to notice how different our experience with noticing love is. No two experiences are the same, even my siblings and I would definitely not have the same response. However, almost but not all of our experience with loosing love is the same. Again, I am just pointing out observations without making conclusions because the main point is just to have you learn about the different experiences beyond yours which you would have reflected on as you read the questions. As well as have you think if your experience with love, from your memories, have shaped how you express love.
This brings me to another aspect of this topic I am now thinking of exploring in the next conversation around love. Maybe I might use this as a series to solve the unknown issues I have with love.
Taking inspiration from these replies I had an idea of where to look [in my memories] for my response. So, to answer my question, my first memory of feeling loved would be when my mum let me wear one of her wigs that I absolutely loved, for my 3rd birthday party in nursery school. I have this very vivd memory of getting ready for school that day and running to her room so she could dress me up and help me put on the wig. The happiness I feel from that memory must definitely be associated with love. As for a time I felt I lost love, that would be every moment I have realized that I will not physically contact my aunty again. She passed away.