the estes blues

despite a rocky, sleepless start, this trip has bestowed the peace and nourishment and space i had envisioned coming here. and i find that the layered colors of the mountains, the deep frame of the skies, and the cold depths of  the ice hold all the bitter and sweet blues of a vacation that has passed its halfway point.   

{for the first time in a long time, words seem reluctant to come to me tonight so i will let the colors speak on their own.}

...................................

estes nights

a grandfather clock is an insomniac's worst nightmare. when i can't sleep at night, the last thing i want to know is the time. how much has passed. how much is left before the sun comes up. before i have to wake up again. before i have to face the world and a day dragging my feet still planted in the hours behind me that should have been spent asleep. but in the stately presence of my grandfather's grandfather clock, every quarter hour is accounted for. every restless series of turns pulling one more chime into its wake, notifying me, unequivocally, of the time.

but the night is brilliant outside my loft – the mountains visible under tonight's half-full moon and a star moves quietly in the center of the black rectangle of window. the star shimmers and shifts under my gaze – refreshingly optimistic, reassuring me in her sweet and playful dance. this is a lighter kind of comfort than what was bestowed a few nights ago during a run that drove me deep into old heart ache. i was under a clear sky and a thin sliver of a moon that was reassuring in a way no human being has ever been for me. so full and clear and wise despite her crescent spareness. so soft. so certain. god, that certainty hurts me in all its hope and strength.

i recall exactly when the night sky began speaking to me. just a little over a year ago on my flight to paris when it delivered not only a shooting star and aurora borealis, but a clear message of truth and hope as well. i only pray the message, constant since that first streak across the sky, is correct.

estes park, colorado

in july of 2008 i spent a few days, maybe a week, at my aunt and uncle's house in estes park, colorado. i went to step outside of my life and away from distractions, to find peace and quiet and free time, and to have some mental space to do research on grants for the project that has now become sieve. 

grants applications really didn't happen {i remember feeling guilty about it at the time not knowing that a thing called kickstarter would eventually come to my aid}. however, in a spontaneous and unpredictable twist, the time i spent there was when this blog really took off. giving myself an abundance of sleep and free time, i found i really wanted to write. so i did. even if i didn't know about what, exactly. and the writing started me on a path that years later would be a central element not only in creating sieve, but in attracting my collaborator, andrew, to my work.

in just a few days, just about four and a half years later, i return, last minute and urged by some drive of spontaneity and adventure. i bring with me my writing, my short film, and my future – all things i need to sit down with and sort out. i go to find places for things. take steps forward with others. end the ongoing battle to decide how much or how little a role my life as a professional photographer will play in my future. edit my film. cook. breathe. run. play. last time the summer suns shone down on tank top garbed hikes. this time, the winter cold will nip at my exposed face and welcome me out for snowy hikes.

this feels right in such a beyond-logic-and-understanding sort of way and i am here. ready. patient. happy.

two iphone photos from last trip when the sun was warm and close.

 

the 86 year old

my resolution to reach a reconciliation between heart and mind {and perhaps even toss out the heart altogether for a bit} didn't last a week. hardly a day. i cannot live with anything but my heart first and forward-most. it was silly of me to make threats and consider otherwise.

but something needed/needs to change and all i can think to do is seek advice from the 86 year old version of myself – the weathered, sweet woman who has seen the world, lived it in, loved it best, and learned to soften the voices inside her head long ago. she is the one i turn to these days when uncertainty stares me down and fears fester inside me. she is kind and patient and smiles often with this knowing look that hurts my heart to think too much about – hurts because she can look back at me, at this person i often struggle so hard to find, and appreciate the work i'm doing for her, and in turn, give me back a little of the wisdom i'm slowly uncovering that she's steeped in for years.

thank you my friend, mother of my children, keeper of my future. you make my present clearer.

the lists of 2012

2012 Concerts

• radiohead {x3}
• m83
• zoe keating
• hilary hahn & hauschka
• the xx
• sigur ros
• beirut
• macklemore
• brother ali
• shabazz palaces & THEESATISFACTION

2012 travels

• paris
• vienna
• ilz
• venice
• rome
• dublin
• killarney
• galloway
• vancouver, bc {x2}
• st. louis, mo
• kansas city, mo
• dallas, tx {x2}
• portland, or {x3}
• washington dc
• moneta, va
• santa barbara, ca
• bend, or
• bayou la batre, al
• orcas island, wa

2012 MOVIEs

• christmas vacation
• the hobbit
• star trek
• star trek: the search for spock
• star trek: the wrath of khan
• mission: impossible 3
• back to the future 3 {while editing photos}
• back to the future 2 {yes, you read right}
• slumdog millionaire
• lincoln
• cloud atlas
• perks of being a wallflower
• skyfall {x2}
• quantum of solace
• casino royale
• the dark knight rises
• moonrise kingdom
• --------------
• SIFF 2012:
• grassroots
• killer joe
• badlands
• people like us
• beasts of the southern wild
• keyhole
• shorts festival closing night
• safety not guaranteed
• sleepwalk with me 
• the do-deca pentathalon 
• the avengers {not SIFF....shhh don't tell the festival}
• camilla dickenson
• eden {go. see. it!}
• your sister's sister
• --------------
• solaris {original russian version}
• the descendants
• there will be blood 
• pina
• perfect sense
• sherlock holmes
• heima

today

there are some days you cannot account for. they cannot be predicted, premeditated, or contained. they find you, usually when you need them most. they are the gift of a sign. an extra sweetness. a hug held longer and tighter to remind you that the world is okay. your life is okay. you, you are okay. more than okay, actually, because the day takes you to a place so far beyond okay. a place where you are free and spontaneous and true, soaking in the expanse of land and sky and life around you.

today...

today was one of those days. 

and here at the end, as it wanes to a close, i am left so tired and so full. especially my heart. a huge piece of me so recently squeezed dry, tonight it rests soft and satiated. and try as i might, i can't really account for the gift of this day. i certainly didn't predict or premeditate it, but here in this humble collection of words and images and phrases, i will try my sleepy best to contain it. the day. the beauty. the fresh, clean snow. a new day. a new year. a new direction. a new start. 

today was just one of those days.

reconciliation

some nights you can feel insomnia sneak slowly up the back stairs–creaking a loose board, bumping into the rail, then slipping open the back door that i was sure i had locked. but tonight is not that kind of night. tonight insomnia shattered through wood and glass, launched itself across the kitchen, and bounded squarely on top of my bed and heart. i never even bothered turning out the light. i knew sleep would never come.

for the record, this is not how i wanted to welcome in the new year. sleepless and tired. restless and jaded. this is a time for fresh starts and resolutions. optimism. hope. at the very least this is when i should be getting a jump start on my new year's resolution of giving myself one of the primary building blocks to health and a happy life: sleep.

but we don't always get what we want. we don't always get what we deserve. we don't always get the answer or clarity or truth even when we ask for it. and deep disappointment has joined hands with insomnia to guarantee a long night dedicated to asking why and why not?

i find myself looking back to exactly a year ago, to the person i was inside my skin, a nomad eating pho in seattle one night, boarding a transcontinental plane with a compass and empty red travel journal the next, flying across the world to a fantastic city far away and embarking on a month that still means so much to me as insulated by distance and time as it now feels. and in particular, i go back to this moment looking out the airplane, when i turned toward the window to hide a rush of hopelessness and tears and immediately was presented a shooting star and the northern lights. and the voice inside my head accompanying the vision was calm and crystal clear: you are grieving but there is no need...all will be well...all will work itself out...this is your sign... 

i spent the next long while, tears instantly dried, watching in wonder as aurora borealis shared her glory.

and i have done my best. i have spent 2012 listening to that voice, listening to the truth resonating so clearly inside of me despite what prudence or reason would suggest. this voice is the essence of how i have always preached we should live our life: with our heart, our intuition, our gut, and through our vulnerability. and in this year i have made some great friends along that path, pushed them further along in their life and in turn been pushed myself, welcomed the magic of a gorgeous home space, and finally, with the help of several of you, begun the journey toward telling the story of sieve.

i realize all that should be proof that it's working, it's a successful way to live, but today, now, as i turn toward a new year, i also must consider a different way of life. one of reconciliation.

it's an attempt to acknowledge that my heart is a tender, optimistic organ, capable of clearer sight than i have ever imagined, but one that has been known to be mislead {by myself as much as others} and at the very least, too consistently open for repeat bruising. in the end, she must learn to live in the same body as my mind and the two have been in conflict, this entire year particularly, seeing the same life from very different perspectives. it's time compromises must be made.

and tonight.

now.

right now.

i begin the process of reconciliation: balancing the sight of the heart with the {hopefully} grounded, logic of the mind. i don't know how to do this without withdrawing from the realm of the heart altogether but i just have to trust that in the wake of this year of failure, this is the only way forward i haven't tried. the only way to find any sort of clarity and balance. i trust that the voices reflecting my life back to me will tell me if i go astray, but at the moment, i am so done with the arguments between what the two voices tell me. so done.

wish me luck on sleep and have a happy new year, however it welcomes itself into your life. my hope is that 2013 steps forward into my life with honesty, openness, and tenderness.

god, i long for tenderness. where has its soft caress gone?

snow globe

some nights should be held close in a snow globe, words swirling around gently like flakes, settling down after a while; clarity left visible in the stillness. we rest together in the peace and comfort of truths spoken out loud as the glass slowly fogs to opaque. the bottles empty. the cd changes. the words pick up again, shaking out our world with more truth, more flakes catching the flicker of the ferries passing by in the rain.

but the real victory is, for perhaps the very first time, the words not ready to be spoken, truths not ripe to be understood, rest patiently in the spaces between the now still snowflakes. they are comfortable knowing that one day they too will be tossed into the air and allowed to give voice to the life already lived out between us.

one day. not today.

until then, some nights, we should hold each other close inside a snow globe, care swirling around gently like flakes, settling down after a while; love left visible in the stillness.

awash

not running

if i had just registered in time for the half marathon on october 27th, i wouldn't be here forced to make an obvious decision. i would be on the other side of the race now with whatever significant thing that is left in one's hands after a physical test is passed. if i had registered in time i'd be done. victorious. fulfilled.

but i didn't. and last wednesday, a week and a half before my second-choice date {registration safely completely long ago}, my right foot started aching. it was a weird sort of ache, something stretching seemed to have a temporary effect on—annoying but not painful. so the next day i ran my 5 miles and spent the rest of the night limping in what was now something to pay attention to.

so i took it seriously but firmly held on to the goal of running on the 17th. i iced. i stretched. i went to the chiropractor twice in one week. i practiced yoga. i stayed off the foot and iced some more. and it was working. today, less than a week later the ache was quieter now than when it first appeared. things were looking up. my chiropractor hadn't said no yet and was even still saying might and could.

but this afternoon found me face down on the table in his office as he so very gently tore through the painful muscles and ligaments up and down my right side, enumerating all the factors that have added up to one sore foot: adrenal fatigue and stress to the body {training for three months}, not sleeping enough {guilty}, mental/emotional stress {in spades} and chemical imbalance {see mental/emotional stress for easy justification of indulging my usually in check sweet tooth}. now an increase of any one or two of the above would have been fine, but all of them combined was the perfect storm. so here i am, waves of reality crashing against me as i cling to my life raft called hope. hope to run, hope to achieve. hope to find something out there in the race to hold on to right now.

and in the quiet of the chiropractor's office, as we both concentrated on listening to what my body was saying, a few simple, obvious questions bobbed to the surface right under my nose: if i ran this weekend, why? and how could whatever i have in my hands after the race possibly be worth more than my longterm health and recovery?

yes, i'm aware that i'm not being asked to give up the olympics or a chance to qualify for the {insert prestigious name} marathon, but this isn't about the rest of the world or its standards, but about me and my life, my goals. me. i am drawing to a close one of the more intense years of my life, hoping to transition into a new decade with ease and strength. the past three months of focused training have helped me move toward that end. they have helped me find a physical fitness i have always longed for and a slimness i always doubted i could achieve. and above and beyond anything, the time, the focus, the goal, it was all for me. about me. in my life that is so busy, very little of it is actually about me. it's about earning money, making art, connecting with others, writing emails, sending postcards, preserving and understanding moments, cleaning my apartment. the list goes on. it's exhausting sometimes to think about it.

so the pressure to run isn't just because i'm a completionist, and the disappointment in the face of losing this chance isn't just about crossing a finish line. it's not just about about the act or the proof that i really have achieved the physical and mental space needed to run a solid race—it's about the surprises the test would bring, the discoveries i know i would make. in not running on saturday, i am losing one of those rare opportunities to live at the very edge of myself at a moment in my life so marked by a strange blend of transition and grief and progress. my first half marathon {posted here} still features largely in my personal narrative, and this time i am so much more prepared, so much more ready to focus all 13.1 miles, push myself harder. more than anything, i wanted to see what is out there at this particular moment of my life, what is just beyond my sight and understanding of myself, and most importantly learn what she has to teach me.

but if i have learned anything this year, it's that sometimes the strongest decision is to embrace the imperfections of the moment rather than plowing boldly {and occasionally recklessly} on toward what my brain/ego/hope/optimism sees as possible. so here, with you standing in for the friends i had {rather vulnerably} asked to stand along the race course for me, you invisible, silent witnesses are cheering me away from the route i should not run.

i surrender the race, surrender the hope, surrender the experience and insight and epiphany i might have had for a cost i am deciding i cannot afford: my body.

my body. my hope. my soft machine. you have carried me so far, so fast. i will give you the rest you ask for and we will try again soon. we will try again soon.


---------------------
on the topic of milestones, this is my 900th post.

celebrate

counting. sweeping. killing. the new is finally here. history made. remade. the next chance. restart. more words. more commitment. strength. truth. confetti. so we danced in the street, drank from paper bags we passed around, hit balloons, blew bubbles, found friends, hugged strangers, smiled large, and held the world closer in the moment when it was all decided.

again.


for the record, i was scared, but never doubted. hope never doubts. it's too pure. too clean. too bright. so let it shine a light forward and celebrate.

atoms for peace

atoms for peace - thom yorke

no more going to the dark side with your flying saucer eyes
no more falling down a wormhole that i have to pull you out

the wriggling, squiggling worm inside
devours from the inside out

no more talk about the old days
it's time for something great

i want you to get out
and make it work

so many lies
so many lies
so many lies
so feel the love come off of them
and take me in your arms

peel all of your layers off
i want to eat your artichoke heart

no more leaky holes in your brain
and no false starts

i wanna get out
and make it work

so many lies
so many lies
so many lies
so feel the love come off of them
and take me in your arms

i wanna get out
and make it work

i want you to get out
and make it work

i'll be ok

so many lies
so many lies
so many lies
so feel the love come off of them
and take me in your arms

word.

relationships are the battleground where we fight for what version of ourselves we become: honest or deceptive, independent or lazy. they reflect all of our potential and all of our weaknesses at the same time...when you start a relationship, you always have ideas about how the other person will broaden your horizon and lift you up, but truthfully a relationship will always redefine itself around the level of its greatest weakness.

-the tobolowsky files

clarity

i have been waiting for clarity to find me. but all the while, i have been holding it in my hands.

at last

you know that thing that is the scariest thing you can imagine asking yourself to do {emotionally speaking, of course}? that thing that defies all the defenses you've built up for yourself, that thing that would break down the illusion of control and safety in this wide wide world of ours?

well i'm going to go do it. give it up. bust it open. and i'm writing it here so i hold myself to it.

i can do this.
i can.
i will.
i am.

truth vs. honesty

i am in pursuit of truth. i always have been. and by truth i mean the capital T kind of Truth. the kind that resonates. the kind that you can feel spilling across the horizon, clean like the morning sun.

yes, Truth illuminates, usually catching me in the darkest moments, so often telling me things i'd rather not hear but somehow already know. i'm not sure how, but i have a knack for feeling it out there even before it begins its journey toward the curve of the earth, past the horizon and across the three miles of space and time to become a thought, an idea, or someone else's words that touch me. change me.

Truth always changes.

but even in the worst moments, the light of the revelation, no matter how harsh it falls, no matter how hard a reality it reveals, the light is comforting. it softens any blow like the welcome gaze of an old friend. but even if that weren't so, i have long known that Truth is much preferred to the alternative of darkness, confusion, and deception.

yes, i'm done with the rest. bring Truth on. bring it on.

---------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------

on the same topic, but said differently, this is a quote from the tobolowsky files. it follows a story about how stephen was bet by a friend that he couldn't hit his friend even if they were both standing on a piece of newspaper laid out on the floor, one on each side of the paper. stephen refused to take the bet and sure enough, the friend laid the newspaper out in a doorway, shut the door, and then proceeded to prove that stephen would not have been able to touch him and would have lost the bet.

then he said to stephen:

it's a lesson for you...in the difference between honesty and truth. most people live their lives and they think it's the same thing, but they're not. people can use honesty to tell lies...but honesty never tells the whole story. it only tells part of the story, the part you want to be heard, the part where you're right, but the truth...not only changes the way you see the situation you're in, but it changes the way you see the world from that point on. you can use honesty to bludgeon...to hit people over the head, but you can never go back from truth.

thank you, stephen. i am done with the rest. bring Truth on. bring it on.

clock winder

clock winder is on repeat tonight–a beautifully wrought piece embracing the uneven nature of time: the staggered rhythms, the dissonant chords. the poignancy. the beauty. the uneven descent into silence.


this song is on repeat tonight as i stay up long past my bedtime, to pass the time, kill it, and now, finally, to mark it.

time.

yep, time.

what's to be said about this thing we understand so little about? we think we've caught it all, scooped it up and held on to it possesively, assigned a set of sequential numbers to it, occasionally a second and a minute hand, and viola, it's ours. we think we know it, that we get to control it, and we are comfortable in that illusion we blindly clutch to our chests as we carry on through time. yet all the little symbols we bring along with us, trapped inside cell phones and adorning our wrists, they are just that: a symbol. nothing more. and yet, nothing less.



i am so ready to be in my 30s. so ready to feel the passage of time mark itself on my age. because this is not just another hash mark in a row, this is the start of a new row. and while age doesn't mean everything, i feel like i've earned my stripes this past year pulling myself hand over hand, dragging myself through the mud a lot, just to cross this line.

......................................................................thirty......................................................................

i feel clean at the moment.
baptized from so many tears fighting even more fears.
but they, too, are the markers of progress. milestones of terrors i can now turn my back on as i continue forward boldly into the fog of uncertainty and confusion and growth.

and that is something else i have learned {and by learned i mean my body is feeling the truth of what my mind has known for years}: this thing i've been fighting to get to the other side of, it never ends. the other side doesn't exist. the imbalance of change, of growth, of being challenged: it never, ever gets comfortable. yes, i have my days like everyone else, where i can navigate my limitations gracefully, where i can articulate my frustrations clearly and with kindness to myself and others, but similarly there will also be the days when it all breaks apart and things spiral out of control into a temporary and usually overwhelming chaos.

but now i know.
i know.
i know.
this is just part of the process. part of time passing through me, unerringly delivering a new part of myself to understand, breaking open a new space i never knew was there.

so with that, here is a toast to another year, another decade, and to the realization that i never will arrive anywhere but here and now, the only place time has no effect on.

bayou la batre {in photos}

here is the collection of production and location photos from sieve this past week. two days of driving. four days of shooting. six days of living a dream together with someone who believes in it as well.

it hurt going through the photos on the plane, feeling like i had left behind this new way of life that is exhausting yet so fulfilling, feeling like i had misplaced something important {where is the dodge journey? where is andrew? where is all the film gear?}...but none of that is true. this is just the beginning. everything is laying out in front of me faster than i can imagine. my only job is to put one foot in front of the other, keep grounded, stay centered & trust in myself and my worth no matter what.



p.s. all these photos are mine except the one where you can see my hands {that would be a neat trick}. that one is andrew newton's, my dp extraordinaire {pictured}.

in production

i have no words to spare at the moment, so i give you images.

here

i am here, less than five miles from my childhood home: that small, beaten house that was the first place i lived in this world. my life began there. my memories. my first words. i was given my first book there wrapped up under the christmas tree; saw the moon through my grandfather's telescope there out in the front yard with all the weeds.

and now there is here again and the three of us, myself, my memories, and my home, meet again to compare notes on what exactly we each have experienced in the eighteen years since we were all in one place together.

i have the hardest job of the three. the other two just have to show up and show themselves off. me, i have to work, to write, to perform and construct. assemble the piece converging into a story worth telling. a story with meaning. a story with beauty and truth.

and as much as i fear there is no possible way i can create a net of words and images big enough to contain what will happen here, i know in fact, my job is actually the same as theirs: all i have to do is show up. the words and ideas are already here, standing at attention, waiting patiently for me to look back at them as i sift and sieve through this world i am navigating. and so far, my memories are generous in return, loaning out freely from the vaults of my childhood so i can admire the patina added from the tender care of my later selves, polishing my young understanding of the world during the past two decades.

already i am filled.

driving through mobile tonight was surreal. the darkness of 9pm obscuring things i might otherwise remember, but even so, familiarity curled around details. moffett road. bel air mall {which i knew was coming long before the sign announced itself}. winn dixie. padgett switch road. half mile road. two mile road. mostellar medical center {where my blood was drawn on my birthday only a few weeks shy of exactly 24 years ago}.

the most haunting of all was a mysterious building with two white silo-like towers. the writing on them didn't make sense to my sleep deprived and road-tired brain and as i peered at them trying to place what they were for and whether or not i recognized them, i felt the curious gaze of a child step into my body as a sense memory returned. i feel the boredom of being in a car, unable to make sense of this building and strange letters all belonging to a foreign adult world. and as i drove onward tonight, wondering if the memory was real or imagined, i realized it didn't matter if i actually ever stared at that particular building. the truth of the moment, the truth that came surging back to me while passing this one building, that wash of curiosity and loneliness and awareness of the adult world around me, that was real. that was an undeniable marker of my childhood. and, here, tonight it was given back to me in full color and surround sound. and for now, that is enough.

tomorrow, the first thing we film is my home at 33 adams street.

i can hardly believe it: i am here.