Category: Final Focus

I sometimes wonder the secrets these old quilts keep or the stories they would tell if they could speak …

What hand-me-down wisdom would they impart?
Would they speak to us of love?
Of heartbreak?
Of loss?
Would they tell us their truths and testimonies?
Or wrap us in words of encouragement and hope on hard days?

It’s hard for an artist to separate their heart from hand. Feelings naturally find their way to fingertips.
Emotions inevitably sewn into stitches and pieced together into a patchwork of patterns bound together to cover and comfort future generations. And perhaps that’s the real beauty of them …
Quilts do more than keep us warm. They hold history. They keep us connected. They are a bridge between the past and the present.
A patchwork of patterns and colors pieced together by day or under lamplight glow by hands future generations would never know.

In the photo: Colt Swindall, son of Dylan and Amber Swindall

– Mackenzie Free –

Wife, mother, photographer & current resident of the unassumingly magical town of Steele, Alabama

Yes, magic is real … but it’s not always what you think.

It’s not make believe or in movies or manufactured by Disney. Magic isn’t manmade,

bottled up and mass-produced. 

It’s made in the heavens and sent down to earth … silently… subtly … secretly. 

It’s sown into the soil and grows from the ground.

It’s hidden under the rocks in the riverbanks and swims in the sea. 

It serenades us from the trees and the forest floor.

It blooms in every color and brings us the bees and butterflies.

It grazes on grass and hides in holes and sometimes, it’s so small it can only be seen in the dew

of the early morning light.

Go outside, listen and pay close attention.

Magic is out there. It’s everywhere. But you have to want to see it

**The magic is all around us in St. Clair County – from mountains, valleys, lakes and creeks to wide open pastures and dense forests.

Discover and cherish the magic we have for yourself and generations to come.

– Mackenzie Free –

Wife, mother, photographer & current resident of the unassumingly magical town of Steele, Alabama

I never knew I could feel so much affection for a house as I do this one. I’ll admit, I love it far more than I should.

Maybe it’s because of the splendid confluence of generations that gather here any given Sunday after church to share a meal. Maybe it’s the small gang of unruly cousins that can be found climbing the pear tree in the front yard or chasing one another through the grass at family gatherings. Maybe it’s because this is a place where people sit on the front porch in the mornings and wave at passing cars and retire to the back porch in the evenings to break beans or shell peas.

Maybe it’s because of the beautifully kept yard and garden and the wealth of knowledge that comes from those who tend to it.

Maybe it’s because the house always seems to smell of pound cake or cornbread and there is, most reliably, always sweet tea in the fridge. Maybe it’s because this isn’t a life I grew up with, but this house and the people who call it home have raised me in ways they will never fully understand. And they have given my children the most splendid, idealistic, memories of childhood.

They will look back on their time spent here as if it were a movie or a dream … the kind of memories that move in slow motion and seem to be bathed in golden light.

Or maybe it’s not really about the house at all. Maybe this house just represents a life that feels nostalgic … a life so many others remember from their past and have forgotten still exists in some places.

… It still exists here. This house is more than a house, it’s a life force. It almost has a heartbeat.

… And it is the place my heart will forever feel the most at home.

**Dedicated in loving memory to Coy Free, whom we miss dearly & called this house home.

And to Rubye, who loved him faithfully for 68 years … and lives there still.

– Mackenzie Free –

Wife, mother, photographer & current resident of the unassumingly magical town of Steele, Alabama

Life is overwhelmingly beautiful. And terrible.  And wonderful. And messy. And short. … But rarely is it predictable. Most people don’t get to the end of their lives and think to themselves, “Well, that went exactly as planned” just before they pass on.

That’s the thing about life….  Some things just happens to us. We aren’t always prepared. Things don’t always go according to plan. Because life often has an itinerary all its own. We can cultivate adaptability and learn to embrace changes in life… or get pulled along begrudgingly.  Either way, change is an unconquerable reality. 

Sometimes we get to choose it and welcome change eagerly.  Sometimes we are painfully unprepared and resist. And sometimes we can get caught in the space between. 

The space between ready and not. The space between changing direction and staying the course … between the problem and solution … between the known and unknown … between holding on and letting go.

It’s here, on the cusp of change, that life lends us rest and clarity is keenest if we lean in and allow it. It’s here, in that blank space between the chapters of our lives, that we can pause, take a deep breath and ready ourselves for the next thing.  So if you should ever find yourself caught here, in the space between…anxiously waiting… don’t lose heart.  These pauses aren’t empty voids … they are life’s way of holding space for our head and our heart to align and embrace. … sometimes we might find the space between can be our saving grace. 

– Mackenzie Free –

Wife, mother, photographer & current resident of the unassumingly magical town of Steele, Alabama

The same way we inherit our grandfather’s eyes or our mother’s mannerisms, I wish we could recall memories of our loved ones as they once were … back when they existed without us. 

I wish I could remember the first time my mother fell in love or how my grandad felt the day he arrived home from war. I wish I could close my eyes and recall my great grandmother’s childhood home and the way her momma looked in the morning light of their farmhouse kitchen window or the rush of emotions my grandfather felt the day my father was born. 

I wish that “family inheritance” consisted not of money or things, but instead, we were gifted our ancestors most treasured memories, their most carefully curated moment – wrapped up just waiting to be untied. 

This kind of inheritance anchors us. It offers us some insight into who we are and where we came from. We are by no means defined by them. Our lives are still wholly our own. But, in a way, we are all still conceived a bit by these memories from long ago. These memories helped make us. They are a part of us … poured into the very foundation of our existence. 

(The above image is a digital copy of a slide taken in 1953 by my grandfather, Maxie L. Black. 

Featuring my grandmother, Betty Lou Black, and aunt, Patricia)

– Mackenzie Free –

Wife, mother, photographer & current resident of the unassumingly magical town of Steele, Alabama

Life is fickle and unpredictable. It is forever changing.

Sometimes it’s quiet, subtle shifts we barely notice. Sometimes our whole world changes in a heartbeat  of a second. Either way, life changes every day, and we lose a lot along the way. We lose belongings, people and places. We lose love, memories and time. We lose ideas, dreams and our perspective.

Some losses are slight, while others are so big they become a personal measure of time – marking beginnings and endings of certain chapters in our life.

Some losses slip by unnoticed, while others we never fully recover from. We carry some voids with us forever.

The Portuguese people have a word for this that tenderly ties of these feelings – “Saudade.” It’s a rather elusive word that helps give a voice to that melancholic yearning for something that once was but never will be again.

I believe it’s these losses – the ones we grieve and still long for despite the passage of time – that define us. If we look closely at the things we miss the most – the things our heart longs for – I think we will find a part of ourselves in the void. To paraphrase Russian playwright, Anton Chekhov: Tell me what you miss, and I’ll tell you who you are.

(* The featured photograph is of the charred remains of the home of Phillip Hyatt and Tim Bennett of Steele. They lost their beloved hilltop home and all their belongings to a house fire on July 4, 2022.

I asked them to share with me what they found they longed for most:

Phillip, whose parents originally built the home, said his thoughts returned most often to a photograph of his parents (both now deceased) that hung outside the master bedroom since the house was first built.

“It was the heart of the home,” Phillip said.

Tim, practice pianist and music collector, lost instruments and decades of treasured memorabilia. “It was a lifetime of music I lost,” Tim said. “I miss that the most.”)

– Mackenzie Free –

Wife, mother, photographer & current resident of the unassumingly magical town of Steele, Alabama