Sistas

I've always stated that I don't take pictures - these photographs "chose me". What I mean by this is, in most instances - I don't grab a camera and decide what, or who I'm going to capture behind the lens. I'll be driving or with family and friends, when I see something - or someone that compels me to pull out my camera and snap away. This image was taken at something that my Wife's family calls "Monday Night Dinner." Monday Night Dinner - before the pandemic, was a weekly gathering at my Wife's Aunt Becky and Uncle Jay's home near Cobbs Creek, not very far from here in West Philadelphia. Every Monday evening family and friends would gather to Aunt Becky and Uncle Jay's for food, fun and conversation.

To give you an idea of the kind of congregation Monday Night Dinner attracted, my Wife's Grandmother and Grandfather had nine children. Nine. Who, all were fruitful and multiplied. Who's babies have been fruitful and multiplied, who would invite their family and friends. So you can imagine how many people made the recurring trek to Monday Night Dinner.

Well, one night - after most of the family left to make their pilgrimage back home, I retired to the back of the house where the masculine allocation of the company usually meets to watch sporting events on Uncle Jay's large screen television. The moment I entered the area, this scene right here "captured me", so to say. One of the absolute beautiful aspects of childhood is the total disregard of proximity. If the babies love, or just like you, they'll just approach you - uninvited - and DRAPE THEMSELVES all over you. Especially with siblings. There are no invasions of space, or - "yooo ... gimme three feet Bro."

This truth is evident in this photograph. The "Sistas" - Gi-Gi and Aubrey, totally engaged and captivated by the game on their Momma Ivanna's cellphone. But it's not just the excitement, or the lure of the game that has brought them together like conjoined, or "Siamese" twins ... it's the love.