Mary McHenry - Friend of the Week

Mary's What —​ "I'm so in to my Fuji Xt1 Camera! It's small, easy to travel with, and the quality is excellent. I am also so grateful for YogaGlo so I can take yoga classes online."My friend Mary McHenry is an accomplished photographer who has boldly gone where we all dream of going. After a conversation with her husband that opened with  "What if it's true that we really DO only live once?" the couple planned, plotted, then successfully relocated from Oakland to a little island in the Bahamas.

Friend Of The Week: 11 Questions

1. Nickname? Sometimes people call me by my last name: McHenry. For the split second upon hearing it, I feel like the jock I have never been.2. Where do you live? Elbow Cay, Bahamas. It’s a lovely little 6 mile long island. We are recent transplants - our family arrived here in August after 13 years in Oakland, CA.3. What are you working on or how do you spend your days? I’m editing a wedding I recently shot in Miami - two adorable guys tied the knot. It was my first “guy gay wedding” and a blast to shoot. Other than that, I’m snorkeling, yoga, cooking, reading, teaching our new dog Stella some old tricks, and all the things you do when you are a mom. I’m appreciative that life feels somewhat simple right now.4. If you could have anyone in the world over to dinner, who would it be? Ah! Such a hard question - I love dinner parties! I’d love to meet Lynsey Addarrio - she is a photojournalist who recently wrote a book called “It’s What I Do” about her life as a war photographer. I also adore funny, smart writers - so Anne Lamott and Aziz Ansari would round things out nicely.5. What do you wonder about? Everything from “Is there such thing as a natural sunscreen that doesn’t make me look even whiter than I am?” to “Is the world getting worse or better and what can we do to sway it in the right direction?”.6. If you could wake up with any superpower, what would it be? To fly! Without a doubt!! Oh wait - that’s a bit selfish. I’d want to create peace by laser-beaming education, food security and women’s rights to every city and village in the world. While flying.7. What qualities do your favorite people have in common? A sense of humor, compassion, and a love of nature.8. What's the most awkward accidental text or email you've ever sent or received? Well this goes before emails and texts but it’s the same vein. In high school, my friend and I called a boy’s home to hear his dreamy voice on the home answering machine. We hung up and then launched into a teen frenzy about how cute he is, how much we want to marry him, etc. for a few minutes until we heard the answering machine beep. It recorded the whole conversation. Aggghhh.9. What is too serious to be joked about? Children being abused or dying.10. What is the most inspiring thing you've seen, watched, or read recently? Reading about and seeing images of refugee families risking everything to create a safer life for their children and the good people out there helping them to safety.11. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? Living somewhere new when our time is up in the Bahamas. Where should we go after this?