Some moments come on big and important from the get-go.  The assassination of John F. Kennedy; the September morning when the World Trade Center towers crumbled; the night we elected our first African American president. If I accomplish nothing terribly remarkable in my life – and the odds are rapidly tipping in that favor --  I can take comfort in the fact that I have, by sheer dumb luck of timing, been witness to remarkable times.

Then there are the countless other days, the quiet dates historians will never deem important enough to record but have intrinsic value because their ordinariness too has been witnessed.

The retrospective of photographer Carrie Mae Weems at the Portland Art Museum reminds me to stop and feel both those momentous and mundane moments. 

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