Brightening Lives, One Person at a Time

    For Unit 2 of the senior humanities class Journalism, Photojournalism, my classmates and I each had to pick someone to interview about their meaning of life and photograph. We wrote profiles based off the interviews, and were also supposed to use their meaning to inspire the photograph we took. I interviewed my friend Maggie Davis while visiting her college, and you can read more about her and her meaning of life below. 

    There’s a common saying that says people from the west coast are nice but not kind, while people from the east coast are kind but not nice. A shining example of the eastern half of this phenomenon is Maggie Davis, of Worcester, Massachusetts. She is a major in international development and social change at Clark University, born in Alabama but raised outside of Jacksonville. When I found out my time visiting her lined up with this project, speaking to her about her meaning of life was an instant no-brainer. 

    I met Maggie my freshman year of high school on Instagram. She replied to something I had commented with a simple “Hey, this is unrelated but we have the same name!” and we started talking to each other from there. She’s been a shoulder to lean on and a neutral ear to talk to countless times over the past few years. When I asked if I could spend two nights at her dorm to look at her college her answer was an instant and enthusiastic yes, so I can’t say it didn’t make sense when she told me her meaning of life is to “die knowing she made at least some peoples lives at least a little bit brighter”. 

    There are many ways she incorporate this into her life regularly. When I asked about this she said "I like to remember little things that people like or that they mention wanting and then I get that thing or related things for them because they're always shocked that someone noticed or remembered and got it for them and that makes me happy" She told me about specific friends, such as April who likes birds, and Sasha who likes Taylor Swift. She mentioned keeping a list of things like this on her phone so that she always has it on hand. She said this makes sense to her just off the fact humans are social animals, but I dug deeper and found even more of her thoughts on this. 

    Having talked about the day to day aspects of the ways Maggie tries to make others feel better, one important instance involves her best friend turned adoptive sister. "Lilly has been my best friend since 4th grade. She lived with her abusive aunt for the majority of her life and was technically forbidden from speaking to me for all of high school. In our senior year as her 18th birthday was coming up, she started packing and I started taking boxes of her stuff to my house, and on the day of her birthday she moved in with me. She got the last of her stuff and didn't go back after school, and we had a birthday party for her and it was kind of sad because my parents got her a cake and she said she'd never had her own birthday cake. It was overall a joyous occasion she was finally out of that woman's house, but she kept having second thoughts and didn't want to be a burden on my family and I just had to be like "Girl, my mom has been calling the guest room "Lilly's room" for 5 years now".

    After discussing her part in helping Lilly out with me Maggie immediately continued to her parents influence on her outlook on life. She described them as willing to drop everything to help someone while still being lovingly rude. "Lilly got stranded at JFK Airport and my dad drove to NYC from Connecticut at like midnight and then drove her to Boston. They make fun of Lilly for being vegetarian and they make fun of the stuff we eat and they would never be anything close to vegetarian but they always make the different food for her. I think that I got those traits from them, like I would drop anything I'm doing if anyone I care about at all needs help but I'm also going to clown on them." Despite being raised to prioritize the needs of others, she says that her views on this have still evolved over time. "I've had friends that I've lost because I wanted to help them with every problem they ever had, and sometimes that was way too much or it was overbearing and I'd also get frustrated if I was "helping" and they weren't listening to me because I thought I knew better. Now I'm more aware of when I need to step back and be aware that helping is good but sometimes unsolicited help can be overbearing or condescending. It's just sometimes it feels like 'yeah sorry I yelled at you for dating a man your absent father's age. I'm sure you're right though'". She now tries to channel her energy for helping people into her work doing things like volunteering at the Worcester Boys and Girls Club teaching music lessons, but continued saying "you want to fix these kids problems so bad but you can't get involved in a lot. I'll probably need another outlet, maybe I'll be a volunteer firefighter." 

    I took the following photo of Maggie 31 minutes past midnight on a road in Worcester. We were driving back to her college after a concert, but were first trying to find something to eat. We had gone to a Wendy's but found it closed early. She read off a list of open places nearby, and said she was ok with anything, but I wanted a cup of tea from Dunkin. It was late, and it would've completely made sense for her to say that she wanted to get home to get to sleep at a reasonable time and pick the nearest thing, but instead she pulled out of the Wendy's parking lot and started driving to get me tea on the other side of town. Sitting in the passengers seat, I realized this simple act of kindness conveyed Maggie's spirit much better than any planned photoshoot could. At inconvenience to herself, she went out of the way to get a friend something they wanted. I believe that represents her best. 

Maggie Davis, MD October 26, 2022
Maggie's face and torso is in focus on the left of this photo, with the outside of her window blurry in the middle. On the right is her windshield and steering wheel. The lighting is a combination from the moonlight and typical highway lights like that of cars and signs. Since it was taken on an iPhone there wasn't much control on shutter speed or aperture settings. Without context it could come off as a fairly objective picture of a girl driving, but with a description by a person emotions end up there whether intentional or not.