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I'm not very brave.

When I was little, I was afraid of the dark. I was bold on the streets, sassy on the playground, a terror in the woods, shimmying up trees so high and leaving the earth and my gaping friends below. But the sun goes down, the night converges and I doze with a nightlight to keep the nightmares at bay. Monsters cannot legally eat you with light around. Just a fact, you know.

I wanted to be braver. I still do. I try, but I'm just not very. A running theme throughout my childhood, and now adult life. I contented myself with my glaring flaws and ever-present nightlight.

But now you're here and that changed lots of things, everything. I feel braver next to you. Like I could run an extra mile, take an extra hit to the head by life, eat an extra slice of pie. Is that romantic enough?

We've had life-changing journeys and rough adventures, or just quiet wandering-- I like all of them. Even when there's storms, valleys, and darkness, that's okay too. Because I know I'm safe and sound next to you.

2011. Downtown Los Angeles, CA.

I've been hanging around people that appreciate fashion. Not just for it's high brow trends or "I drink the real kind of macchiato shit" lifestyle, but for the rich process of creating a good, lasting product. "Look at this stitching and the detail here. How did they get this fabric to react that way?" They cradle the sleeve reverently. They are young designers, refined and evolved "do-it-yourself" men and women, that drape their products on models on runways. I still wear shirts from Old Navy, but they tolerate me.

They care, a lot. But not necessarily to make money. It's for the process of molding an idea into life with your hands, of putting a human story into something that will be worn by a breathing, living individual. I get it and nod, but still can't believe I need to pay close to a bill for this gauzy tank top.

"Why red threads?" I shyly pick up a child's shoe that's hand-crafted to every order, knowing as much about shoe-making as I do about competitive Scandinavian hopstoch. The cobbler doesn't even glance up at me as she frowns at a scratch in the tiny outsole of her ware.

"Just because I could."

Why make something excellent, personable, lasting? Because you can.

2011. California Marketplace, Downtown Los Angeles, CA.

Enough of this, she said, not in disgust, but mildly, as if reading off a menu.

She wandered to the edge of the forest, hoping to see a glimpse of something beyond tree tendrils and boulder crags. Maybe a flash of silver, a glimmer of otherworldliness in a clearing. Or an uncommonly vibrant bird flitting away to peer back at you underneath a hemlock. Or maybe even a half-empty Pringles can embedded at your feet.

Anything, she breathed, anything more.

"Oh afflicted city, lashed by storms and not comforted, I will build you with stones of turquoise, your foundations with sapphires" Isaiah 54:11

2009. Chicago Botanical Gardens, Chicago, IL.
Subject: C. Lee-Nelson

I was changing my ink cartridge one day and it spewed all over my hands, scared squid-style. Stains refused to come out for over a week. It was persistent nonsense that would make people look twice as I walked down the street or paid for items.

Placing these soluble discs in my eye with these fingers would throw me for a loop. It looks dirty, but it's not; it was clean enough to touch my eye. What you see belies what is. The choice to accept your hand is clean even when it appears dirty, is a matter of understanding the truth and making the choice to live by it. If its clean, its clean.

And pop that sucker in your eye.

2011. Los Feliz, Los Angeles, California.

... could love a face like this. The camel, I mean. And other than your mother, maybe the tuareg people.

Camels spit something fierce and dark brown. It left me alone but showered its putrid goodness all over my colleague. It bucked and tore angrily at the ground with its bear paw-- total beast wars, yo. It made a sound like an animal dying, some howl with more consonants than vowels-- and then settled, completely docile next to its master.

I remember writing my parents an e-mail from an internet cafe/shack in Ouagadougou. The keyboards were weird; buttons had been popped out and mixed around. It took me precious minutes to find apostrophes and exclamation marks. A year later, I was rummaging in my mom's snack "closet" and I found this e-mail lovingly pasted to the back of the door.

2009. Burkina Faso, Africa.