In October of 2020, we needed Marfa. What we thought would be a two-week hiatus from communal dining and rubbing shoulders with people in the grocery aisles turned into a months-long pandemic...and then a year-long pandemic…and then and years-long pandemic. However, I digress because I must—for both you and myself—limit mention of the P-word, at least while it’s still raging in some new form or another.

Here was our situation: My husband and I had been married for one year and had forgone our honeymoon because of moving, familial issues, and eventually the P-word. The desert and the artistic allure of Marfa spoke to us as token millennials. Granted, we were supposed to take our honeymoon—which we referred to as our “agavemoon”—in Marfa in April, which was after everything had shut down, including the town of Marfa. However, after months of taking social distancing precautions by staying at home and refraining from gathering while the rest of the state had returned to “normal,” we traveled west for 10 hours to be even farther from other human beings and to enjoy a sandy, surprisingly cold adventure among new landscapes.

We committed scenes and sounds to memory, to moment, to digital space, to moving pictures, and to 35mm. Film photography will always play a special role in our lives together. We’d spend our younger days taking photos together on our SLR cameras and excitedly rushing to Walgreens or CVS to develop them.

This time, we sent our film from the Canon EOS Elan and Olympus Mju to Indie Film Lab, an independent developing lab in Montgomery, AL. Here’s what we got back…

Firstly, in the latter part of 2020, Airbnb stays were few and far between in Marfa, and understandably so. When I had begun searching in 2019, I tucked away my hopes for booking the picturesque home described as the “art-filled adobe” because it was too expensive at the time. However, we booked the art-filled adobe after all when we saw the fallen price.

The home felt lived-in and yet sacred. It was everything I thought a house should be: filled with art, texture, and character.

The home was also filled with figurative warmth. At the end of October, we happened to visit during the first cold snap of the season, and lemme tell ya, I was NOT prepared. Other than exploring the town and going to Big Bend, any time spent indoors was almost exclusively within the confines of the adobe.

Down to the town of Marfa: it was typically Texas with a twist. Given the P-word, it felt like a ghost town and that was for the best, really. Everyone was kind and patient with us. Also, the mix of humans and lack of racism was welcomed (my ethnic Texans, IYKYK).

Coffee and food goods: For coffee, we went to Do Your Thing, Frama, and bought Big Bend Coffee Roasters for home brews. For cooking at the Airbnb, we shopped at The Get Go.

The media descriptions are not overstated… This place really looked like the perfect Wes Anderson film. I could picture Adrien Brody riding a fixie down Highland Avenue.

35mm film did justice for our downtown foray because it captured the—again—figurative warmth of the town, despite the biting cold we crossed.

We explored Big Bend by car on our last full day in West Texas. I hadn’t seen landscapes so sweeping or topography so majestic in this part of the world before. It no longer felt like we were in the same state.

The last leg of the drive within the park led us to the US border with Mexico. The Santa Elena Canyon was breathtaking. My cheeks were hurting because I couldn’t stop smiling from sheer happiness and awe.

Now, over one year later and two years into the ****(I’ve gotta say it)**** pandemic, my memories of Marfa feel like a dream.

And yet, the reality that we actually experienced that dream will always stun and inspire me every time I look back upon it.

Want the moving pictures version of our trip? Here’s the video I shot with my iPhone XS Max, Moment lenses, and external mic (not naming the brand because I would not recommend it).