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Everyday

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Everyday
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YOU HAVE PERMISSION TO BE HUMAN. 

We make art and share meaningful stories to remind you of just that.
 

PROJECTS

A traveling, pop up phone booth installation to talk to people who are no longer around.

A traveling, pop up phone booth installation to talk to people who are no longer around.

What does it mean to live? What does it mean to die? A podcast exploring what it means to be human.

What does it mean to live? What does it mean to die? A podcast exploring what it means to be human.

Connecting mother's who've lost a child and people who've lost a mom to call each other on Mother's Day.

Connecting mother's who've lost a child and people who've lost a mom to call each other on Mother's Day.

 
 
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DEATH IS NOT
A DIRTY WORD

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Hi, I'm Morgan, Founder of Death Dialogue.

In 2012 I got a call from my dad saying my mom, whom I had seen just two days prior, was dead. With nothing to lose, I packed up my things and traveled the world. I was looking for an escape, but what I found was connection. In every country I visited, I found stories of people who had lost loved ones and were questioning their mortality. I returned from that trip dedicated to telling those stories, and to talking about death and dying in a world that doesn’t.
 
Bessie and I start our trip from Oregon to California tomorrow, so I called my grandma to tell her I was heading to CA and that I was so excited to see her. ⠀ ⠀ She ended the call with:⠀ “Ok I’ll see you soon! Make sure to bring all your stuff in case you don’t wanna go back up there.⠀ .... think about it.”⠀ ⠀ Do you think there’s a Secret Association of Grandma’s Getting Their Grandkids to Move Home where there’s meetups and handbooks and conversations tips? Cuz some days she is VERY convincing 🤔
I shared this in my stories but I want to do it here, too.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ This last weekend I went on a backpacking trip with @noel_russ @katerentz and @hadleyfuller . It was my first backpacking trip in over a decade and easily the hardest physical thing I've done since my back injury two years ago.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ 2 miles from our destination I was pretty sure I'd be fine if I just stopped there and fed myself to the bears. I wasn’t sure how I’d go another two miles. When we made it to the lake the sun was going down and I couldn't believe i actually made it. I was so tired and my body was so confused as to what just happened.⠀ ⁠⠀ The next morning when the sun started to rise in all of its alpenglow glory, I went down to the lake and just watched for a moment. It was at that moment in the still and wonder of it all when I thought "Yep. I get why people do this" (This being hike up hill for a long time with really heavy packs and call it fun). I'm so thankful I went — I thought about cancelling 5 different times — and for the love and support along the way. I'm ready for more of this magic. ✨⠀ ⠀ Thank you @Katerentz for capturing the moment, mosquito headnet fashun and all.
Needed to tell you somethin’
When my sisters and I would travel we'd take photos and send them to our parents. My mom would say "FACES! I want to see your FACES!".⠀ ⠀ So here's me and my FACE, trying on my new sunglasses because I got tired of seeing the same two sunglass cases around the house and opening them every. single. time. thinking that maybe it was a different case - one with sunglasses in them.⠀ ⠀ It feels weird to post this photo, but sometimes you start following someone and can't remember who they are or why you started following in the first place. ⠀ ⠀ So hey, I'm morgan. I'm an Enneagram 4 and an ENFP.⠀ ⠀ I used to live and travel in my 1970 VW named Bessie. I still travel in her, but no longer live in it. (I now live in Portland, OR which still feels weird to say). Vanlife was really cool... until it wasn't #breakdowns. But van life taught be to be pretty chill about a lot of things and a lot of it has carried over into home life. For example, 10 minutes after this photo was taken, I wanted to go on a run and had no clean clothes. So I took some out of my dirty laundry basket, put them on, and went for a run. I smelled extra bad but at least it got me running.⠀ ⠀ You might have read that and thought "um, ew." Or you might have thought "omg never change". If you are the latter, then you are my people. You care a lot about what's on people's insides and less about their outsides. You realize that when you pass a really smelly runner that they probably wouldn't have gone on a run unless they pulled those clothes out of the dirty laundry (bc sometimes the barrier between going on a run is just finding clean clothes to run in) and applaud then for trying. I like trying. Both in myself and when I see it in others. I know for some people, just getting out of bed feels impossible. I know this because I used to be one of them. I never want people to feel bad about their own version of trying. I want to meet people every time with "yes! you did it!" - whether that's getting out of bed, starting vanlife, changing careers, going for a run. you get the idea.⠀ ⠀ Anyway, I'm hogging the conversation. Tell me about you? I'll be up packing +getting reading for a trip to CA so come say hiii
This time last summer I was on a small island is Sweden, going for daily swims, sitting in lots of silence, and eating all the cantaloupe.⠀ ⠀ I don’t think I’ve had cantaloupe since — truth is, it’s not my favorite — but when June slipped into July I felt the craving for it. My body knew it has been a year before my mind. ⠀ ⠀ I didn’t know at the time what I know now — that week on a small island in the middle of nowhere Sweden would give me the courage to pause all my travels, pause all of my work, take down all my websites, and plant roots somewhere. To just take a freaking break. I don’t say it lightly and I mean it sincerely: that week changed my life. And I’ve been spending a lot of July sitting sitting on my back patio in my little slice of portland, thinking of how special this past year has been because of that week. And of course, there’s been lots of cantaloupe.⠀ ⠀ [120mm film]
I spelled my mom's name and it felt so foreign to write. I looked at it — J-O-A-N... is that right? ⁠⠀ I said it aloud — JOOAAANNN. It, too, felt foreign to say.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ In the middle of the night, laying in my van, writing a text message that unexpectedly asked for me to recall my mom's name, one of the things I had feared most — that there would come a day when her name no longer felt familiar — had come true.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ And you know what? It was ok; I am ok.
Why film? It's a question I've been getting a lot. It's pretty simple for me ⁠— when I shoot film I feel fully expressed and my truest me. When I shoot film, I'm shining a light on my soul. When I share these photos, I'm letting you witness it. ⁠⠀ I think this is true for all creative work. For you it may be writing, or painting, or acting. For me, in this stretch of a moment, it's making images with film. I feel a connection to the images I make with film in ways I rarely feel with digital. People ask if it's expensive. Yeah, it can be. But so is spending thousands on a professional digital camera and lenses. It doesn't mean one is better than the other, it's just finding which one you love. For me, it's film.
I want to remember:⠀ ⠀ How every time we go for a walk you tell me my Birkenstock’s look just like your elderly orthopedic sandals.⠀ ⠀ How I convinced you that one sandwich shop serves pure joy, so that when I ask you “What are we gonna go get!?” You respond “joy!!”⠀ ⠀ How that one time I asked if you remember what grandpa’s voice sounded like and you gave a definitive no.⠀ And then you looked into the distance and lifted your hands as if to cusp his face and said “but sometimes, I can almost see him”.⠀ ⠀ How you tell the story of how you used to serve milk and graham crackers at school to kids who had no money. And when the school learned you had no money, you got them too. How that impacted you so much — the luxury of milk and crackers — that that story remains even when your mind strays.⠀ ⠀ How most of your life you weren’t allowed to dance, and then I got you to move your body to Taylor Swift while driving in Bessie. Watching your body move to a beat, it was awkward and beautiful - decades of stiffness coming undone. How it must have been vulnerable for you to share that with me. How grateful I felt to witness it.⠀ ⠀ How you get really pissed if I’m late, but if I say “grandma, I’m sorry. I’m just having a hard day” you soften and say “that’s ok, take a seat and rest, everything can wait.” There’s a hardness to you. I see it come out sometimes and I’ve heard stories of it. It makes your softening so beautiful. ⠀ ⠀ How your hands are so crooked from arthritis and you say “But I’m thankful for my hands. Some people don’t have hands”⠀ ⠀ How your face lights up when we surprise you with something sweet. And you tell us you could never eat or drink it all and then 5 minutes later it’s gone.⠀ ⠀ How you say hi to everyone - EVERYONE - even if they look grumpy and unapproachable. How you tell me they’re just bitter pickles and you’re gonna make them smile. And you do.⠀ ⠀ How your memory is starting to go and your body is hurting and I can tell getting old is scary and a great unknown, and yet you still choose joy and gratitude every single day. These are the things I want to remember. ⠀ How special you are to me.
 

 
 

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Banner photo by Daniel N.Johnson.
 
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