Category: Final Focus

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

Life through the lens of Mackenzie Free

Farmers, I’ve determined, are a different breed.

They are thick-skinned and tenderhearted. They are hardworking and resourceful. They are disciplined and devoted. Their legacy is a long and important one.

It is a bit of a love story actually … the relationship between a farmer and his farm. There’s a deep and spiritual connection between farmer and field. The very nature of farming is built on faith.

They must have faith in the changing of the seasons, the weather and the very cycle of life itself. So much is out of their hands. Their lives become a continuous prayer.

Just as the farmer must cultivate, prepare and protect his fields … the field also cultivates and prepares the farmer. It is a job like no other, after all.

It has no beginning or end … the work is never done.

They are the original founders & curators of civilization. The stewards of both land & livestock. They bear the burdens and responsibilities of the landscape and living things appointed to them. They are bound to it by blood, sweat and birth.

It is a calling after all … A noble one. A divine partnership of the highest order …

The farmer and his farm.

[*St. Clair County currently has roughly 500 working farms comprising nearly 60,000 acres]

[**Featured photo of Legacy Farms of Steele]

– Mackenzie Free –

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

Life through the lens of Mackenzie Free

Let’s return to slow.

Over the years, we’ve all grown so accustomed to busy and so numb to noise that we forget. We forget it wasn’t always this way. We forget the magic found in slowing down. We, our collective humanity, manufactured the rush, clamor and overstimulation of today. Sometimes it’s easy to forget there was a time before now when our greatest source of wisdom was rooted in wild things, and we didn’t carry the weight of the world in our back pockets.

But there is still magic that still exists if you know where to look. Out past the city lights and strip malls.  Beyond the traffic and the noise. The houses get smaller, and the yards get bigger. Young and old congregate as peers at the local gas station on Saturday mornings to share coffee and the day’s plans. Local law enforcement isn’t above recovering lost pets. People still wave and ask about your momma. Kids still climb trees and roam pastures like small herds of cattle. And “Farm to Table” takes on a more literal meaning.

I know about this magic because I’m fortunate enough to live within its realm, although I didn’t always. I wasn’t born into it. But my four daughters were. They don’t know it yet, but they are part of dying breed: The children of magical childhoods. They also aren’t yet fully aware of the wild magic that surrounds them here. The gentle nods from nature. The ministry of simple things. The natural world in their backyard. Nature’s never-ending testimony for us to bear witness to.

I’ll do my best to remind them, though, to show them, to encourage them to slow down and adopt nature’s pace, to teach them that in life there is no easy fortune at the end. We only get what we put in. If we plant kindness and compassion, we will cultivate it. If we plant love and patience, they will surely grow. And of all the lessons this life has taught me so far, the truest for me is this: Both wisdom and children grow best in wild places.

I will continue to grow my children like my garden flowers: wild, rooted in the dirt, bathed in sunlight and creek water. I pray the earth will shape them just as much as my love. I want them to never to grow tired of the sounds the earth makes when we slow down to listen and don’t interfere. But mostly, I wish for them to live slowly, purposefully and be content. And that, once they see it, they never grow tired of life’s wild magic.

– Mackenzie Free –

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