I love you, my hope
November. 24. 2011
Purple sunset on a crisp evening walk with a friend today- unaltered I swear!
Friends often question my exuberance, asking me what makes me a happy person and I struggle to articulate that happiness is a spontaneous state of being. The list of reasons I rattle off when questioned begins with having breath and consciousness, but inevitably ends with the love I find everywhere.
I remember walking to my student job beat after three all-nighters spent dissecting form and space, on an ordinary Louisiana afternoon beaming in the bliss of just being there, then; I remember wiggling my toes in green grass on a warm evening watching a murmuration or tearing up in waking meditation simply feeling “So much joy! So much love!” That is the ecstasy of being- what is joy but synchronicity with existence and its magnificent flood? Even when it’s bad, it’s good- it’s all good. Happiness is a state of mind, I choose to exist in joy through and through the shit. And the love I have for and get from my family and friends, helps me shine on- they are my hope.
This Thanksgiving I am evermore grateful for you beautiful people who keep my life whole. Forget the miles between us, I feel the sweetness in you.
I love you, my hope- Happy Thanksgiving!
Like this:
silver beach
January. 15. 2011
Might be because I’m a sailor’s daughter, but I don’t care how many beaches I’ve seen, standing at the foot of the sky with an endless expanse of water is always elating.
Beaches have always been summer things for me, until I saw the snow come in close to the water, and turn the sand silver. It helps the sand soak in the clouds and the whole thing gleams…
I will always remember making this picture: my sister waiting far behind, hiding from the sub zero wind-chill around lake Michigan, my fingers numb, and my stuffed hoodie getting in my eyes as i struggled to find the shutter and wheels with those frozen fingers.
A picture, is so much more than a picture.
“We are all creatures of our memory” said Frank Welch on a sunnier afternoon to me, and I know that pictures to me are the language of my memory; thought, feeling and emotion swim in me together.
Therein probably lie the origin of my love affair with photography- browsing through fat piles of family albums and remembering through the years, feeling my ways back in time, constructing, dreaming…
down the road Ak, this one will surface too…winter beaches, sunlight, my sister’s shadow and I- set up for good pictures right there- below or above zero.
volcano
October. 13. 2010
the sacred volcano: fuji-san
no matter who you are, it is breathtaking in its solitude.
no other like it in the whole range…so typically japanese- meticulously symmetrical in its rawness…
this country never seems to lapse into disorder. Thus far…
horizon
May. 17. 2010
consider it art from art…took a day out in the Texas countryside this weekend
the storms never came-
years ago, my poetic boss sent me this poem…it’ll make you fall in love with Billy Collins if the title of the book didn’t already- it’s from The Art of Drowning.
Horizon
You can use the brush of a Japanese monk
or a pencil stub from a race track.
As long as you draw the line a third
the way up from the bottom of the page,
the effect is the same: the world suddenly
divided into its elemental realms.
A moment ago there was only a piece of paper.
Now there is earth and sky, sky and sea.
You were sitting alone in a small room.
Now you are walking in the heat of a vast desert
or standing on the ledge of a winter beach
watching the light on the water, light in the air.
-Billy Collins [the art of drowning]
the end is the beginning is the end
November. 23. 2009
…wudja know dawn from dusk?
dunno why they wanna do away with the whole polaroid thing…everyone I know has LOWE for em. Where else can ’09 look like ’69?
