I chew thoughtfully, very aware of the camera’s gaze on me. I try and ignore its presence. Sometimes I am successful. I go about my day aware of a third unseeing eye in the house. My children color on pages, the camera a benign presence. They chat about inane things. Sometimes, they say something profound.

It is nearing the one year mark since we embarked on this strange journey. One email, a whim and now it is hours of footage of us doing everyday normal things. The lens has followed us on road trips, capturing the joys of firsts. It has been a discreet presence in some emotional moments. It has captured us battling some incredibly hard decisions.

It has been like a familiar face, one we tend to forget exists as we cavorted under misting sprays and held out our arms feeding birds. It has been the harsh alien presence asking questions, probing, waiting, recording.

When the filming is done and she calls it a wrap, it will be missed, this fuzzy cat and the wires under our shirts. It will be weird seeing ourselves on screen, protagonists in a story that looks and feels familiar but is alien. Moments frozen in time, sound bytes strung together to stitch a story. We will sit in the audience and perhaps walk away wiping our eyes.

Our names will be footnotes, scrolling past at the end credits. This chapter will end. Another will begin.

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