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after so long, it was nice to see my grandmother again.

this day—like most days on this trip—i found myself oscillating wildly between the desire to be present, to interact... and the sublime, (almost panicky), need to document every detail.

the friday following thanksgiving was a particularly bright day. i had invited my grandmother out for a short walk; we took the elevator to the roof of a parking garage immediately adjacent to my father's apartment. this was close by, allowed the warmth of uninterrupted sun, and mildly satiated my own need for high places (an inclination admittedly left wanting whilst on the trailing edge of the continent).

i held her hand to steady her as we walked together. she spoke clearly, albeit in flowing fragments and often trailing off mid sentence.

      is she holding back? did she forget that someone is here, listening?

preoccupied with her own, imminent flight home, she spoke mostly of her nursing home, sometimes of my late grandfather... i walked quietly alongside, watched as she used another pause between fragments to lick her dry lips.

      she sure does that a lot. that licking... there, again. is this a new behavior?
      is she thirsty? i should offer her water when we get back..

i vividly remember thinking it was strange that hands so soft, so warm, could consistently tremble as if they were freezing.

even then, there, it broke my heart to realize that i'd have to let go in order to somehow record this.

i stopped, shot two frames, then ran to catch up.

dear flickr,

it has been months since i've written, i'm sorry. i'm not sure what happened--we just drifted apart, I suppose. suddenly my posts felt empty, as if i'd somehow lost my voice. shuffled my intent. forgotten my story. it did not happen overnight, this feeling has come (and gone) in waves; worse some weeks, better in others, until one day it just broke.

i just broke. i had to go.
(i guess i just needed the space.)

since i last wrote, i've crossed the country (twice), and stumbled up and down the entire west coast. i've slept on family sofas, in parking lots, and at at the beach. (the beach was a favorite).

during this process, i've picked up--and put down--at least a dozen different cameras. tools that once felt soo familiar, intuitive, suddenly felt strange, perfectly foreign in my hands.

sure, they captured images--but somehow they never felt like the images i was seeing in my head.

"maybe i've just lost it," i thought.

i stopped taking photos altogether.

in late november, my pal Sabrina loaned me a 35mm nikon. this, like the others, languished for a few weeks on my camera shelf. a frame here, a frame there: in this way, a casual roll of kodak was pushed through the long-retired body to determine its health--both exposed, and processed with a klnd of detached indifference.

it took me weeks to even look at the negatives.

light table, lupe. a quiet night, snowed-in. my heart sped up in a way i'd long forgotten just looking over the contact sheet: something about the candid nature of the tests had hinted at a magic that had been misplaced in a foolish pursuit of a specific look.

hand, meet forehead.

this was supposed to be fun.
this used to be a story.

(i'm on my way back.)

just a quick note to say happy thanksgiving to the stateside flickr-kids!

i'm in maryland at the moment, which is perhaps just enough distance from my own world to afford perspective on all the things i am thankful for... it has really been a damn interesting couple of years, and i have been so very fortunate for the people in my life.

( well, the people and the dogs. )

really, thank you all.

having migrated south independently to tend to the affairs of her own family, it was a delight to cross paths again a thousand miles from home.  we had spoken, briefly, of meeting up for roller-coasters at a nearby six flags... but as the day grew closer, she proposed something altogether different.

she proposed an adventure.

( she proposed dirt bikes. )

terrifying, but damnit, i do love adventure.
     ↘

after years of coastal-creeping, i have found myself rather fascinated by the desert of late.

between the sun-soaked wedges of sky and sand, the wandering mind trends inward: thoughts fold over themselves in a way that simply doesn't happen anywhere else. memories of yesterday, colored with plans for tomorrow. dreams interlaced with disappointments... the entire, incomprehensible, unwieldy lot, somehow entirely manageable; quietly twisting and turning until everything is not quite inside-out, not quite right-side up.

yet, not quite incorrect either.

this process, left unchecked, breeds new perspective—and more importantly, distance—from those things that i thought were important yesterday. in turn, new perspectives evolve to new understanding: one that is entirely my own, yet entirely other.

the high desert is all about right now. it is accepting that every decision i have ever made--right or wrong--has made me, me, and brought me to this place, at this time.

the desert is about being brutally present.

it has taken me an embarrassingly long time to learn how to do this.

i am still learning.