17 December 2009
Remembering you.
This song makes me cry like a baby.
We all lose friends and loves and family, whether to death or growing up, growing apart or moving on. It's so comforting yet painful to remember times with those people in those old places. People who have changed my life never seem to lose their details.
22 September 2009
Birds? Bats?
23 August 2009
The Alabama grass buzzes with the hum of Alabama bugs, soft, sweet and reassuring. It’s never silent here.
Sensing the last thread of gold sunset peeking over the trees, I glance up from my paperback to observe the best moments of the day while noticing the muffled conversation of the three white twenty-somethings sitting behind me.
As a black couple in loud yet unobtrusive conversation passes, black dots flit through my line of vision. Their erratic motions indicate that suppertime has finally come. Dusk.
--
My family and I wait patiently and silently for the waiter to bring a few glasses of beer to the patio table we’ve claimed. We have exhausted all points of conversation after being each other’s only company for the past week. We are silent but content. Our eyes wander but we are not bored.
My eyes erratically follow the flight of a thousand black dots, birds. Where their paths intersect I guess which way to swing my gaze and most of the time assume that I have made the correct judgment. I am watching the same bird as I was just a second ago.
So this is Spain.
The Alabama grass buzzes with the hum of Alabama bugs, soft, sweet and reassuring. It’s never silent here.
Sensing the last thread of gold sunset peeking over the trees, I glance up from my paperback to observe the best moments of the day while noticing the muffled conversation of the three white twenty-somethings sitting behind me.
As a black couple in loud yet unobtrusive conversation passes, black dots flit through my line of vision. Their erratic motions indicate that suppertime has finally come. Dusk.
--
My family and I wait patiently and silently for the waiter to bring a few glasses of beer to the patio table we’ve claimed. We have exhausted all points of conversation after being each other’s only company for the past week. We are silent but content. Our eyes wander but we are not bored.
My eyes erratically follow the flight of a thousand black dots, birds. Where their paths intersect I guess which way to swing my gaze and most of the time assume that I have made the correct judgment. I am watching the same bird as I was just a second ago.
So this is Spain.
20 July 2009
cafe con letras
One year ago I began the day with a percolator full of coffee—a real rarity in Chile—and a cramped 20-minute microbus ride to Valparaiso, across the harbor from Vina del Mar.
My aquamarine Converse tread down the stairs and out the front gate of my apartment complex, down Calle 8 Norte and a couple blocks south on Libertad, paused at the bus stop and vaulted me up the few steep stairs onto the micro.
Here they paused as I handed the driver 250 pesos in return for a stamp-sized orange-and-white slip of paper which proclaimed Puerto, port. My shoes tapped the ground on beat with the hum of the street in friction with the tires of the micro as my eyes flickered between passengers and the window to my right.
These eyes only wished to see the water’s reflection of the cloud-covered sky over the concrete of the highway. My feet got to tapping harder and faster as they anticipated touching the sidewalk under the overpass on Errazuriz and dodging piles of dog shit in the street.
---
Walking down Second Avenue North of Birmingham, Alabama, my sandals stall and fumble as my brain fools me into thinking that a crumpled-up leaf holds the same properties as a steaming pile of poop. But alas, poop cannot blow away with the wind.
My aquamarine Converse tread down the stairs and out the front gate of my apartment complex, down Calle 8 Norte and a couple blocks south on Libertad, paused at the bus stop and vaulted me up the few steep stairs onto the micro.
Here they paused as I handed the driver 250 pesos in return for a stamp-sized orange-and-white slip of paper which proclaimed Puerto, port. My shoes tapped the ground on beat with the hum of the street in friction with the tires of the micro as my eyes flickered between passengers and the window to my right.
These eyes only wished to see the water’s reflection of the cloud-covered sky over the concrete of the highway. My feet got to tapping harder and faster as they anticipated touching the sidewalk under the overpass on Errazuriz and dodging piles of dog shit in the street.
---
Walking down Second Avenue North of Birmingham, Alabama, my sandals stall and fumble as my brain fools me into thinking that a crumpled-up leaf holds the same properties as a steaming pile of poop. But alas, poop cannot blow away with the wind.
22 June 2009
una pausita
how is it possible that it has been more than a month since my last post?
how can it be that this year is nearly half over? it's incredible how quickly time goes by as we're just doing our thing.
since my last post, i have moved, graduated, been to spain, been to tuscaloosa, devoured a few books, vacationed, gotten asthma and made beet-blueberry pancakes. things are going well.
perhaps sometime soon i will divulge details.
how can it be that this year is nearly half over? it's incredible how quickly time goes by as we're just doing our thing.
since my last post, i have moved, graduated, been to spain, been to tuscaloosa, devoured a few books, vacationed, gotten asthma and made beet-blueberry pancakes. things are going well.
perhaps sometime soon i will divulge details.
14 May 2009
the lovely lady camper
i drove Pea Soup Green last weekend. my first stick ever! and we popped up the camper top to check it out...
the pancake tour is going to be spectacular!
the pancake tour is going to be spectacular!
12 May 2009
A Change of Heart--or, a bit of myself
A few weeks into the quarter, I mentioned something about home to my Spanish class partner at Western Washington University. Stunned with disbelief, he cocked his head and squinted his eyes. “You’re from Alabama?” he asked. Yes Jon, I explained, I thought you knew that.
His reply: “But you don’t have a Southern accent. You’re really from Alabama?”
If only Jon had known that my father eats fried okra and tater tots every night with dinner and shoots squirrels with a bb gun when they try to eat from his bird feeders, he would believe that I am from Alabama. If only he could have heard my grandmother yell from across the kitchen, “Grahb thaht big set ‘ah silverwahre from the top dra’er of the cab’net,” he would know.
As kids my sister and I went to Sunday school most weekends. Once I wore pants to church and the next week the preacher followed with a sermon about appropriate dress for church—and in the Church of Christ, pants don’t cut it. My father is a Rush Limbaugh fan through and through. I can’t talk politics with him, and neither can my conservative mother, if that provides any indication of the intensity of his far-right views.
I haven’t always appreciated my family’s banter about conservative politics and that morning’s sermon, but the food of Sunday lunch at Grandmother’s house provokes a reverent gratitude in me for Southern cooking. After the women in the house finally round up the men and children, everyone waits expectantly in the kitchen, surrounding the peninsula of counter where our feast awaits.
Uncle Mike resolutely thanks the Lord for our meal and the time we have to spend with our family. With head still bowed, I sneak a glance around the kitchen, filled with food and closed eyes. My family forms a semi-circle around a conglomeration of corn bread, Popeye’s fried chicken, mashed potatoes, collards, and macaroni and cheese.
***
“Oh, and of course we’ll have macaroni and cheese, it’s Andrea’s favorite,” Grandmother says every year when she makes that round of phone calls, polling to find out what everyone wants to eat for Thanksgiving dinner. Since I was little and discovered my magical relationship with my grandmother’s macaroni and cheese, there has never been a question about whether or not we’ll be having it, no matter if we’re talking Sunday lunch or Christmas dinner.
Realizing my Southern nature has not been as easy for me as my love for elbow noodles baked in milk and sharp cheddar cheese. Maybe it’s due to the fact that I never developed a Southern accent, the most obvious giveaway. But never have I wanted to go huntin’ or muddin’ and the thought of watchin’ football all day every Saturday makes me cringe. I’m not a “Southern belle” by any means. By most observable measurements, I am an outsider in my own element.
I yearned to get away from the sterile South, where I refused to return frat boys’ cries of “ROLL TIDE,” especially during football season. How could I support Bryant-Denny Stadium’s current role as Number One on the campus map? Number one at an institution of learning should be the library, not the football stadium.
I was tired of judgmental looks from all these religious people who might think that I was going to hell because the curvature of my breasts was readily seen through my shirt and not the foam cups of a Wonderbra.
So I left. Instead of limiting myself within the bounds of Alabama interstates, I flew north to Boston, west to Washington, south to Chile and east to Europe.
***
When I was a kid, before dreams of exotic locales had itched their way into my head, I could always tell hours in advance if we’d be having moussaka for dinner. The heavy smell of Fry-Daddy oil crept past the slate-tiled entryway like the angel of death in the movie The Ten Commandments, even down into the basement. I’d see my mother through the kitchen door, dutifully slicing potatoes. While she sliced and fried, the granite countertop pressed hard against my chest as I stepped up on tippy-toes in order to have a clearer view of the golden fried potatoes that represented my mother’s Albanian blood. I could eat the thin, crunchy chips as soon as my mom salted them and they cooled off a bit.
In those days, when I was too young to care much about the concept of heritage, the homemade potato chips meant only a surprise snack before dinner. But a couple years later, while visiting my mom’s family in Boston, my aunts decided that my cousin Marielle and I would participate in the city’s annual cultural parade. My aunt and uncle brought the two of us to the Albanian Orthodox church. We ransacked a closet full of traditional Albanian clothing and upon exiting the church, the cool breeze ruffled the white cotton of my peasant shirt against my arms.
Marielle and I displayed the full-sized flag of the country of our grandparents with ardor, as the full-blooded grownup Albanians danced and beat tambourines.
Later that night, with the sweat of Boston summers still crystallized on our skin, my mom and Xaxi (Uncle) Johnny told us stories about their post-college trip to Albania, about meeting the family we still have there. My uncle pulled out a photo of my mom wearing a white cotton dress, standing in front of an ivy-encased stone doorway somewhere in rural Albania. The photo still haunts my thoughts from time to time. There was something magical about that ivy and that dress, something that I have not stopped wishing for since I saw them.
***
The entirety of my fanatical Albanian family gathered on the expanse of my Xaxi Peter’s back porch. A couple hundred meters away, clouds and the waters of Buzzard’s Bay morphed into one grey being; a foxtail of grass lined by forest follows behind, all the way to the house. Each of my three cousins, two aunts, two uncles, Nena, parents, and my sister had thrown on salmon pink shirts that proclaimed “Camp Lakror 2005” in tiny white letters.
The wine glasses in everyone’s hands trembled. The shish kabob was almost finished grilling. Five minutes later, as my uncle lifted the lid, he proclaimed “Opa!” and raised the spear of lamb meat above his head. Laughing, my mom and Xaxi Johnny joined him in a dance, complete with butcher knives, and followed the shish kabob inside with smiling teeth and knives flashing toward the night sky.
My tiny Nena, who has shrunk so much she’s now a whole head shorter than me, delights in the antics of her three children. It doesn’t take them much to convince her to spend a few hours making a lakror, a traditional Albanian spinach pie. She is the only person left in the United States who makes lakror the right way, or so my mom says. Nena has been making the dish for decades and my family treats it like gold.
I, on the other hand, am still trying to condition myself to like the stuff. No matter how zealously I try, I can’t manage to eat a whole piece. Something about the creamy, soft filling throws me off every time, but the crust is something so wonderful that it’s almost intangible. Perfectly browned and bigger than an extra large pizza pie, a lakror is truly a beautiful thing.
My fifteen-year-old self thought that somehow, if I could convince myself to enjoy eating lakror, my Albanian half would develop and I would no longer be behind the curve of my Boston cousins, who were much more steeped in that culture. There is no Albanian population in Alabama, so my sister and I are more or less stuck with what little our mom tells us about her heritage.
It seemed so exciting to be from a different country or to have an exotic lineage to explore.
***
I made a pact with myself that if the opportunity arose for me to go someplace new, especially someplace international, I would take it. In the three years since I turned 20, I’ve traveled to six foreign countries and a handful of U.S. cities. Pieces of my heart are scattered globally, as I fell in love with certain aspects of each place.
In the northwest corner of the Northwest, Bellingham, Washington, I walked to school through a temperate rainforest for three months. Rounding a corner of the path, I’d come to a certain area where I liked to think fairies lived. Tiny bright green leaves surrounded the place, their spidery branches extending into the path where my fingers reached out toward them, gently brushing dew off them in the morning mist. The seemingly omnipresent clouds overcast the sun and made every shade of green infinitely more vibrant.
There is a staggering amount of art in Valparaíso, Chile; it is clear that Valpo is a city of creators, no matter where you look. One example is the ex-Cárcel, the ex-prison of the city; this building that witnessed a 20th-century dictatorship has been converted into a haven of paintings and sculptures. Ideas akin to the one that created the ex-Cárcel fill the soul of Valparaíso like the vagabundos—the homeless—fill the bellies of stray dogs with the food they acquire.
***
Friends and acquaintances express from time to time their jealousy of my travels, but really the thing I’ve come to value aren’t the things I’ve found in other places. I have learned to appreciate home. Maybe instead of exploring the surfaces of other cultures, I should probe deeper into my own to find subcultures within that ever-stereotyped group of Southerners. Knowing my own culture, the one I’ve been halfway ashamed to embrace for my whole life, might help me to better understand the others.
Perhaps the twenties are the point in life when this generally happens for everyone, but I think for sure that my generation—the people who have felt the United States had so many problems—we are changing our minds and realizing our love for this country and for Alabama. We don’t desire to flee when we see something we don’t like, but to make it better.
***
“You know, I can’t believe you just said that,” I whispered, cocking my head to the side a bit.
“Well, it’s true. The United States is the best country in the world,” Allen repeated. Four years age he had chosen to attend college in Canada because he was so frustrated with what he saw happening in the U.S. Now, sitting in a Birmingham bar, I stared at him incredulously through cans and glasses of beer.
“I’m tired of Vancouver,” he went on. “The people are flaky and they’re just not real. I’m ready to move back to the South. People here are friendly. They’ll help you out in a bind. They’ll call you ‘baby’ even when they don’t know your name and they’ll always ask you how you’re doin’ and at least pretend like they care.
“Just notice the undeniable beauty of the trees here,” he continued. “People appreciate people. There are so many good things about the South and about Alabama. People just don’t look for them.”
After a few minutes I’d finished my beer. When I returned from buying another round, I found Allen absorbed in conversation with the man who’d been sitting caddy-corner to our table. I wondered if they were kin until they asked each other’s names.
***
In previous years it seemed so much more exciting to be from some other country—any other country. Now I am proud of where I come from, proud to be from Alabama, the South, the United States. Maybe this change in attitude comes with travel and experience, actually seeing other countries, even seeing other parts of my own country. Maybe it’s because no matter where I’ve gone, I always hear “Sweet Home Alabama” and everyone knows and loves Forrest Gump.
It took me until my twenty-second year to appreciate my upbringing and my own culture; I had been stuck somewhere between desiring the city life of Boston or the exotic life of a rainforest hut, wishing for one extreme or the other.
***
I saw only one University of Alabama T-shirt during the three months I lived in the Northwest. Crimson flashed before me as I rounded an aisle at the grocery store. Elated to see one small fragment of home, I extended a friendly “Roll Tide” to the young man. All I received was an inquisitive stare from him and a twinge of disappointment.
In December, stuck in the Seattle airport waiting on stormy weather to subside, I was surrounded by a sea of bright red T-shirts and strong Southern drawls. These forty-odd Alabamians who had just finished an Alaskan cruise were an early re-entry reminder, forcing me to “enter” the South about eight hours earlier than I had anticipated. Though I cringed a bit at their loud “y’all”s, I was secretly glad to be surrounded by strangers who instantly felt like family.
***
Two and a half years later, the turbulence on a plane home from France made the passengers audibly nervous. At least once a collective pseudo-calm, quiet gasp escaped from several people in unison. After being away for two weeks, I was not happy about the apparent possibility of death before I set foot in my homeland. For perhaps too long, I thought about how much I would like to kiss the ground when we landed.
His reply: “But you don’t have a Southern accent. You’re really from Alabama?”
If only Jon had known that my father eats fried okra and tater tots every night with dinner and shoots squirrels with a bb gun when they try to eat from his bird feeders, he would believe that I am from Alabama. If only he could have heard my grandmother yell from across the kitchen, “Grahb thaht big set ‘ah silverwahre from the top dra’er of the cab’net,” he would know.
As kids my sister and I went to Sunday school most weekends. Once I wore pants to church and the next week the preacher followed with a sermon about appropriate dress for church—and in the Church of Christ, pants don’t cut it. My father is a Rush Limbaugh fan through and through. I can’t talk politics with him, and neither can my conservative mother, if that provides any indication of the intensity of his far-right views.
I haven’t always appreciated my family’s banter about conservative politics and that morning’s sermon, but the food of Sunday lunch at Grandmother’s house provokes a reverent gratitude in me for Southern cooking. After the women in the house finally round up the men and children, everyone waits expectantly in the kitchen, surrounding the peninsula of counter where our feast awaits.
Uncle Mike resolutely thanks the Lord for our meal and the time we have to spend with our family. With head still bowed, I sneak a glance around the kitchen, filled with food and closed eyes. My family forms a semi-circle around a conglomeration of corn bread, Popeye’s fried chicken, mashed potatoes, collards, and macaroni and cheese.
***
“Oh, and of course we’ll have macaroni and cheese, it’s Andrea’s favorite,” Grandmother says every year when she makes that round of phone calls, polling to find out what everyone wants to eat for Thanksgiving dinner. Since I was little and discovered my magical relationship with my grandmother’s macaroni and cheese, there has never been a question about whether or not we’ll be having it, no matter if we’re talking Sunday lunch or Christmas dinner.
Realizing my Southern nature has not been as easy for me as my love for elbow noodles baked in milk and sharp cheddar cheese. Maybe it’s due to the fact that I never developed a Southern accent, the most obvious giveaway. But never have I wanted to go huntin’ or muddin’ and the thought of watchin’ football all day every Saturday makes me cringe. I’m not a “Southern belle” by any means. By most observable measurements, I am an outsider in my own element.
I yearned to get away from the sterile South, where I refused to return frat boys’ cries of “ROLL TIDE,” especially during football season. How could I support Bryant-Denny Stadium’s current role as Number One on the campus map? Number one at an institution of learning should be the library, not the football stadium.
I was tired of judgmental looks from all these religious people who might think that I was going to hell because the curvature of my breasts was readily seen through my shirt and not the foam cups of a Wonderbra.
So I left. Instead of limiting myself within the bounds of Alabama interstates, I flew north to Boston, west to Washington, south to Chile and east to Europe.
***
When I was a kid, before dreams of exotic locales had itched their way into my head, I could always tell hours in advance if we’d be having moussaka for dinner. The heavy smell of Fry-Daddy oil crept past the slate-tiled entryway like the angel of death in the movie The Ten Commandments, even down into the basement. I’d see my mother through the kitchen door, dutifully slicing potatoes. While she sliced and fried, the granite countertop pressed hard against my chest as I stepped up on tippy-toes in order to have a clearer view of the golden fried potatoes that represented my mother’s Albanian blood. I could eat the thin, crunchy chips as soon as my mom salted them and they cooled off a bit.
In those days, when I was too young to care much about the concept of heritage, the homemade potato chips meant only a surprise snack before dinner. But a couple years later, while visiting my mom’s family in Boston, my aunts decided that my cousin Marielle and I would participate in the city’s annual cultural parade. My aunt and uncle brought the two of us to the Albanian Orthodox church. We ransacked a closet full of traditional Albanian clothing and upon exiting the church, the cool breeze ruffled the white cotton of my peasant shirt against my arms.
Marielle and I displayed the full-sized flag of the country of our grandparents with ardor, as the full-blooded grownup Albanians danced and beat tambourines.
Later that night, with the sweat of Boston summers still crystallized on our skin, my mom and Xaxi (Uncle) Johnny told us stories about their post-college trip to Albania, about meeting the family we still have there. My uncle pulled out a photo of my mom wearing a white cotton dress, standing in front of an ivy-encased stone doorway somewhere in rural Albania. The photo still haunts my thoughts from time to time. There was something magical about that ivy and that dress, something that I have not stopped wishing for since I saw them.
***
The entirety of my fanatical Albanian family gathered on the expanse of my Xaxi Peter’s back porch. A couple hundred meters away, clouds and the waters of Buzzard’s Bay morphed into one grey being; a foxtail of grass lined by forest follows behind, all the way to the house. Each of my three cousins, two aunts, two uncles, Nena, parents, and my sister had thrown on salmon pink shirts that proclaimed “Camp Lakror 2005” in tiny white letters.
The wine glasses in everyone’s hands trembled. The shish kabob was almost finished grilling. Five minutes later, as my uncle lifted the lid, he proclaimed “Opa!” and raised the spear of lamb meat above his head. Laughing, my mom and Xaxi Johnny joined him in a dance, complete with butcher knives, and followed the shish kabob inside with smiling teeth and knives flashing toward the night sky.
My tiny Nena, who has shrunk so much she’s now a whole head shorter than me, delights in the antics of her three children. It doesn’t take them much to convince her to spend a few hours making a lakror, a traditional Albanian spinach pie. She is the only person left in the United States who makes lakror the right way, or so my mom says. Nena has been making the dish for decades and my family treats it like gold.
I, on the other hand, am still trying to condition myself to like the stuff. No matter how zealously I try, I can’t manage to eat a whole piece. Something about the creamy, soft filling throws me off every time, but the crust is something so wonderful that it’s almost intangible. Perfectly browned and bigger than an extra large pizza pie, a lakror is truly a beautiful thing.
My fifteen-year-old self thought that somehow, if I could convince myself to enjoy eating lakror, my Albanian half would develop and I would no longer be behind the curve of my Boston cousins, who were much more steeped in that culture. There is no Albanian population in Alabama, so my sister and I are more or less stuck with what little our mom tells us about her heritage.
It seemed so exciting to be from a different country or to have an exotic lineage to explore.
***
I made a pact with myself that if the opportunity arose for me to go someplace new, especially someplace international, I would take it. In the three years since I turned 20, I’ve traveled to six foreign countries and a handful of U.S. cities. Pieces of my heart are scattered globally, as I fell in love with certain aspects of each place.
In the northwest corner of the Northwest, Bellingham, Washington, I walked to school through a temperate rainforest for three months. Rounding a corner of the path, I’d come to a certain area where I liked to think fairies lived. Tiny bright green leaves surrounded the place, their spidery branches extending into the path where my fingers reached out toward them, gently brushing dew off them in the morning mist. The seemingly omnipresent clouds overcast the sun and made every shade of green infinitely more vibrant.
There is a staggering amount of art in Valparaíso, Chile; it is clear that Valpo is a city of creators, no matter where you look. One example is the ex-Cárcel, the ex-prison of the city; this building that witnessed a 20th-century dictatorship has been converted into a haven of paintings and sculptures. Ideas akin to the one that created the ex-Cárcel fill the soul of Valparaíso like the vagabundos—the homeless—fill the bellies of stray dogs with the food they acquire.
***
Friends and acquaintances express from time to time their jealousy of my travels, but really the thing I’ve come to value aren’t the things I’ve found in other places. I have learned to appreciate home. Maybe instead of exploring the surfaces of other cultures, I should probe deeper into my own to find subcultures within that ever-stereotyped group of Southerners. Knowing my own culture, the one I’ve been halfway ashamed to embrace for my whole life, might help me to better understand the others.
Perhaps the twenties are the point in life when this generally happens for everyone, but I think for sure that my generation—the people who have felt the United States had so many problems—we are changing our minds and realizing our love for this country and for Alabama. We don’t desire to flee when we see something we don’t like, but to make it better.
***
“You know, I can’t believe you just said that,” I whispered, cocking my head to the side a bit.
“Well, it’s true. The United States is the best country in the world,” Allen repeated. Four years age he had chosen to attend college in Canada because he was so frustrated with what he saw happening in the U.S. Now, sitting in a Birmingham bar, I stared at him incredulously through cans and glasses of beer.
“I’m tired of Vancouver,” he went on. “The people are flaky and they’re just not real. I’m ready to move back to the South. People here are friendly. They’ll help you out in a bind. They’ll call you ‘baby’ even when they don’t know your name and they’ll always ask you how you’re doin’ and at least pretend like they care.
“Just notice the undeniable beauty of the trees here,” he continued. “People appreciate people. There are so many good things about the South and about Alabama. People just don’t look for them.”
After a few minutes I’d finished my beer. When I returned from buying another round, I found Allen absorbed in conversation with the man who’d been sitting caddy-corner to our table. I wondered if they were kin until they asked each other’s names.
***
In previous years it seemed so much more exciting to be from some other country—any other country. Now I am proud of where I come from, proud to be from Alabama, the South, the United States. Maybe this change in attitude comes with travel and experience, actually seeing other countries, even seeing other parts of my own country. Maybe it’s because no matter where I’ve gone, I always hear “Sweet Home Alabama” and everyone knows and loves Forrest Gump.
It took me until my twenty-second year to appreciate my upbringing and my own culture; I had been stuck somewhere between desiring the city life of Boston or the exotic life of a rainforest hut, wishing for one extreme or the other.
***
I saw only one University of Alabama T-shirt during the three months I lived in the Northwest. Crimson flashed before me as I rounded an aisle at the grocery store. Elated to see one small fragment of home, I extended a friendly “Roll Tide” to the young man. All I received was an inquisitive stare from him and a twinge of disappointment.
In December, stuck in the Seattle airport waiting on stormy weather to subside, I was surrounded by a sea of bright red T-shirts and strong Southern drawls. These forty-odd Alabamians who had just finished an Alaskan cruise were an early re-entry reminder, forcing me to “enter” the South about eight hours earlier than I had anticipated. Though I cringed a bit at their loud “y’all”s, I was secretly glad to be surrounded by strangers who instantly felt like family.
***
Two and a half years later, the turbulence on a plane home from France made the passengers audibly nervous. At least once a collective pseudo-calm, quiet gasp escaped from several people in unison. After being away for two weeks, I was not happy about the apparent possibility of death before I set foot in my homeland. For perhaps too long, I thought about how much I would like to kiss the ground when we landed.
21 April 2009
jerry grimaldi
"good and bad," my mom started, and i instinctively got the same vibe as when i came home the night after exams finished 2 years ago. that night, my dad was in the hospital for a heart condition; my family had chosen not to tell me, so as to not distract me from my studies.
"your dad and i went to the golf course this morning, jerry was there with all his old fart friends," she continued. i didn't want to believe that something had happened to one of my parents' best friends, an ex-fbi agent and teller of tall tales "we were making our way around the course, and a bunch of fire trucks pulled up to the front of the course."
my neighbor died today.
jerry grimaldi suffered a massive heart attack on the green of the oak mountain state park golf course. my mom thought out loud, "i think i was the last one to give him a hug."
this is the man who showed up to my parents' new years eve party wearing a jet black suit, frilly baby blue shirt and the shiniest black shoes i've ever seen. "the wife of the dictator of bolivia stepped on this shoe while we were dancing," he'd boasted. "i used to fit into this suit when i bought it in 1972."
jerry was always telling some story about driving the vice president in a stretch limo through a centuries-old town so small the limo grazed the corners of buildings on a sharp turn. his first job as a 13-year-old in new york city was as an elevatorman in a skyscraper. clark gable or one of those guys rode in jerry's elevator on the way to the US army office. he unfailingly proclaimed his atheism in the face of my christian father and mother. he and my parents exchanged books about their religions.
it's an interesting thing, the concept of death, the thought that people just go away and don't ever return.
"your dad and i went to the golf course this morning, jerry was there with all his old fart friends," she continued. i didn't want to believe that something had happened to one of my parents' best friends, an ex-fbi agent and teller of tall tales "we were making our way around the course, and a bunch of fire trucks pulled up to the front of the course."
my neighbor died today.
jerry grimaldi suffered a massive heart attack on the green of the oak mountain state park golf course. my mom thought out loud, "i think i was the last one to give him a hug."
this is the man who showed up to my parents' new years eve party wearing a jet black suit, frilly baby blue shirt and the shiniest black shoes i've ever seen. "the wife of the dictator of bolivia stepped on this shoe while we were dancing," he'd boasted. "i used to fit into this suit when i bought it in 1972."
jerry was always telling some story about driving the vice president in a stretch limo through a centuries-old town so small the limo grazed the corners of buildings on a sharp turn. his first job as a 13-year-old in new york city was as an elevatorman in a skyscraper. clark gable or one of those guys rode in jerry's elevator on the way to the US army office. he unfailingly proclaimed his atheism in the face of my christian father and mother. he and my parents exchanged books about their religions.
it's an interesting thing, the concept of death, the thought that people just go away and don't ever return.
08 April 2009
22 January 2009
"One day in particular stands out to me as a very productive day on the quad, which has absolutely nothing to do with being a productive academic student. It was this past October. My senior year had recently begun and my mind was full of plans for after May, graduation, and for tonight, but the sun was shining beautiful and I had to be in class in five minutes. I had put off reading the Chaucer or James Joyce or whatever the required reading was for the day, instead having spent hours entranced by the more accessible and entertaining books dealing with the ancient bohemians of the French Quarter who are understandably so attractive to someone who is stuck in college for the fourth year.
While smoking a cigarette with friends, a short-lived habit I picked up during a summer spent in South America, I decided against going to class utterly unprepared. Instead I wheeled my bike to the shady side of the quad and instinctively threw off my cardigan to spread onto the ground under my elbows. As I caught up with the reading for the class I was in the process of missing, so much life was happening on the quad. Some friends had piled into a couple hammocks nearby to nap. To my right, a shirtless student played the guitar and sang badly, but I eventually moved closer to him in hopes of drowning out the sound of dance music playing on loud speakers across the way. Some boys were in the throws of an ideal pickup football game, and Denny Chimes rang true with somber songs of mourning for a memorial service. People who huddled around the chimes wore black; another student had died in a car accident.
A friend passing by on his bike stopped to say a hello which turned into a conversation about just how much was going on around us. As we spoke, an older man puffed on a pipe between throwing a tennis ball to his golden retriever. Suddenly the dog bolted away, seemingly for nothing at all, but stopped just short of a grey-haired woman who greeted the dog warmly, then joined the man and pulled out her own pipe. As they smoked together my friend left me, and as far as I could tell we were both equally spellbound by the substance of the stuff we saw that day."
well friends, now i heed another calling to the quad. to keep going this circle of life on the quad.
23 March 2009
to experience france: watch people live
last week was spectacularly busy. i have passed out while editing pictures and on floors more times than i care to mention.
but the whole process of being in france, though at times it's been stressful and dramatic, has so far left me feeling more peaceful and in tune with myself than i can remember. suddenly it's not so scary that i'll be graduating soon (though please don't mention numbers of days or weeks until may 9), and things are falling into place. good things are happening, resume boosters are appearing out of nowhere and i might not even care because planning for the pancake tour is in the works. not that we'll ever really plan, "plan." we will just go.
thanks to little men like this, and many other things, life goes on.
but the whole process of being in france, though at times it's been stressful and dramatic, has so far left me feeling more peaceful and in tune with myself than i can remember. suddenly it's not so scary that i'll be graduating soon (though please don't mention numbers of days or weeks until may 9), and things are falling into place. good things are happening, resume boosters are appearing out of nowhere and i might not even care because planning for the pancake tour is in the works. not that we'll ever really plan, "plan." we will just go.
thanks to little men like this, and many other things, life goes on.
[Christian. Nice, France]
04 March 2009
The 80's are in sight!
the ten-day weather forecast gets me all the way to next friday--and also to france.
with this next trip coming up, i kind of wish i was staying for more than two weeks. shouldn't i just stay a while longer? yeah.. probably. at least another international trip is in sight. spain! it's hard to believe that so many fantastic opportunities come to me without me having to look at all. and what makes it even sweeter is that someone else foots the bill. thanks mom & dad! thanks cbh! oh, thank you cbh.
with this next trip coming up, i kind of wish i was staying for more than two weeks. shouldn't i just stay a while longer? yeah.. probably. at least another international trip is in sight. spain! it's hard to believe that so many fantastic opportunities come to me without me having to look at all. and what makes it even sweeter is that someone else foots the bill. thanks mom & dad! thanks cbh! oh, thank you cbh.
18 February 2009
mass --------
an hour into every media ethics class, i am always convinced that the world is coming to an end, in some twisted way. today i made a list. this is maybe vague at some points, but here's what i thought of in response to john latta's lecture tonight.
The world is coming to an end
on all sides
news will disappear
animals will disappear
no none will know about anything
the government will survey all the wasteland
no one will have jobs
no one will have money or food
white kids won't know black kids exist
nobody will know what it's like to be a _____.
the gap will widen.
meanwhile, i surround myself with all the stuff that we call life. sitting here at my desk, with computer directly in front of me, i also see:
a half eaten pizza, napkin
at least six vessels to hold liquid of my choice
lotion
camera batteries
various pens, markers, check books, mail
unused calender
unused date book, coffee-stained papers
movies
more lotion
orange peel, giant light bulb
notebook, cell phone
jewelry and a paystub
the cat is playing jungle gym in my bookcase and tearing one of my posters while i have piece by piece surrounded myself with various souveniers of my existence. if i think back, i can trace each item here, remember its story and how it got here. i see the one-use coffee mate creamer that i tried to give a guy last thursday in exchange for a backpack. it lies cradled in the drawer just where i probably emptied it out of my jacket pocket a few days ago. my mission tonight is to write, tomorrow i will learn more about web design and finish the gertrude stein book. i will continue to live this existence, one small goal at a time, until i graduate in may. but on the wall in front of my desk, just to the right side, always in my field of vision, is tacked a creased sheet of paper with the words written out:
{Bernice Washington}
750-0448
history of Tuscaloosa
& her role in it
this paper, you could say, i have been thinking about for three months. at times when i am swamped with school work, my eyes wander over to that white beacon and i tell myself to finish my work so i can call bernice washington. as soon as i get a few minutes, i tell myself, as soon as i finish the next three things on my to-do list, i will let myself call her. but i haven't called her, not since i found this bit of paper in a pile of stuff and tacked it onto my wall in january. i didn't want to lose it. but somehow i just can't get the motivation to finish the next three things on my to-do list. you could call it senioritis, you can call it whatever you want to.
on wednesday afternoon when for some unknown reason i suddenly feel like i have all the time in the world, or friday when i finally leave the house after taking completely too long to get out of bed and get dressed, i remember bernice washington. and i kick myself for seeing that folded paper so clearly in my mind, just not quite clearly enough to be able to read her phone number.
bernice has become a sort of fixture in my mind, someone who would be amazing to talk to, if only i could find the time, if only i could clear my schedule. i don't know what i would do if i finally met her, i've been thinking about her for so long. her and ruth, another old tuscaloosa lady who promised to tell me her stories if i'd call her.
these ladies, though, seem so far away and unreachable, compared with my reading for ethics or the research i should be doing in preparation for my rapidly approaching trip to france. everything seems inconsequential at times, and there are so many readily available distractions. they're piled around me on my desk. if they're not there, the distractions are easily found in my head, no prodding necessary. they flood onto my consciousness unprompted in the form of worries, assignments, happy memories, fears and future lives, just like any college student.
and just like any other college student, i am constantly bombarded with internet articles, various forms of chatting, weekend plans, impromptu lunches, class, unforseen delays and serendipity. it is easy enough to succumb to any and all of these, especially when they are each a valid form of procrastination. but there's a certain point where procrastination of school work becomes procrastination of meaningful, fulfilling work, like my someday calls to bernice and ruth.
plus, when the world is ending in every way imaginable, what with the current economy and job market, plus the end of journalism as we know it, where else are we to look than into our imaginations? how is my generation supposed to stop global warming, end the era of fossil fuels, reduce reuse and recycle everything and have a plan for after college while we are still worrying about our current overload of homework? and how do we conjure up even the framework of a plan when established professionals are being laid off and neswpapers will be outdated any day from now? depth reporting will be gone, or so john says, and then what means will we have to learn about other people, other cutures? the government will be the only ones who really know what the hell is going on, and the rest of us will sit on our asses and wonder what it was like when poor people actually had a chance in hell to get educated.
as american college students, we worship overload.
The world is coming to an end
on all sides
news will disappear
animals will disappear
no none will know about anything
the government will survey all the wasteland
no one will have jobs
no one will have money or food
white kids won't know black kids exist
nobody will know what it's like to be a _____.
the gap will widen.
meanwhile, i surround myself with all the stuff that we call life. sitting here at my desk, with computer directly in front of me, i also see:
a half eaten pizza, napkin
at least six vessels to hold liquid of my choice
lotion
camera batteries
various pens, markers, check books, mail
unused calender
unused date book, coffee-stained papers
movies
more lotion
orange peel, giant light bulb
notebook, cell phone
jewelry and a paystub
the cat is playing jungle gym in my bookcase and tearing one of my posters while i have piece by piece surrounded myself with various souveniers of my existence. if i think back, i can trace each item here, remember its story and how it got here. i see the one-use coffee mate creamer that i tried to give a guy last thursday in exchange for a backpack. it lies cradled in the drawer just where i probably emptied it out of my jacket pocket a few days ago. my mission tonight is to write, tomorrow i will learn more about web design and finish the gertrude stein book. i will continue to live this existence, one small goal at a time, until i graduate in may. but on the wall in front of my desk, just to the right side, always in my field of vision, is tacked a creased sheet of paper with the words written out:
{Bernice Washington}
750-0448
history of Tuscaloosa
& her role in it
this paper, you could say, i have been thinking about for three months. at times when i am swamped with school work, my eyes wander over to that white beacon and i tell myself to finish my work so i can call bernice washington. as soon as i get a few minutes, i tell myself, as soon as i finish the next three things on my to-do list, i will let myself call her. but i haven't called her, not since i found this bit of paper in a pile of stuff and tacked it onto my wall in january. i didn't want to lose it. but somehow i just can't get the motivation to finish the next three things on my to-do list. you could call it senioritis, you can call it whatever you want to.
on wednesday afternoon when for some unknown reason i suddenly feel like i have all the time in the world, or friday when i finally leave the house after taking completely too long to get out of bed and get dressed, i remember bernice washington. and i kick myself for seeing that folded paper so clearly in my mind, just not quite clearly enough to be able to read her phone number.
bernice has become a sort of fixture in my mind, someone who would be amazing to talk to, if only i could find the time, if only i could clear my schedule. i don't know what i would do if i finally met her, i've been thinking about her for so long. her and ruth, another old tuscaloosa lady who promised to tell me her stories if i'd call her.
these ladies, though, seem so far away and unreachable, compared with my reading for ethics or the research i should be doing in preparation for my rapidly approaching trip to france. everything seems inconsequential at times, and there are so many readily available distractions. they're piled around me on my desk. if they're not there, the distractions are easily found in my head, no prodding necessary. they flood onto my consciousness unprompted in the form of worries, assignments, happy memories, fears and future lives, just like any college student.
and just like any other college student, i am constantly bombarded with internet articles, various forms of chatting, weekend plans, impromptu lunches, class, unforseen delays and serendipity. it is easy enough to succumb to any and all of these, especially when they are each a valid form of procrastination. but there's a certain point where procrastination of school work becomes procrastination of meaningful, fulfilling work, like my someday calls to bernice and ruth.
plus, when the world is ending in every way imaginable, what with the current economy and job market, plus the end of journalism as we know it, where else are we to look than into our imaginations? how is my generation supposed to stop global warming, end the era of fossil fuels, reduce reuse and recycle everything and have a plan for after college while we are still worrying about our current overload of homework? and how do we conjure up even the framework of a plan when established professionals are being laid off and neswpapers will be outdated any day from now? depth reporting will be gone, or so john says, and then what means will we have to learn about other people, other cutures? the government will be the only ones who really know what the hell is going on, and the rest of us will sit on our asses and wonder what it was like when poor people actually had a chance in hell to get educated.
as american college students, we worship overload.
04 February 2009
crazy bus driver chases yellow waterspouts
[lunch one day last spring]last night i had the kind of mind-blowing god experience that i've only heard tale of in stories about acid trips. (is that how the saying goes?) mine, however, happened when i was 7/8 asleep.
i decided to watch the middle third of i heart huckabee's last night instead of reading for class. after all, julia cameron says i'm not supposed to be reading this week. that's what she meant, right? do something that requires next to no brain activity and absolutely no creativity. plus, i'm sick. another reason to be lazy.
as always, i fell asleep. (hence middle third instead of last 2 thirds.) my room has no tv but since it's cold downstairs, this winter i've been watching movies upstairs where it's warm. in my roommate's bed. (she's never home.)
when i awoke at 1:28 this morning, the audio track from the movie's menu was playing. easy assumption: it had been looping for at least an hour, while my mind had been hearing the same words over and over and over.
in my sleep-induced, huckabee stupor, i gathered my pillows and other belongings so i could go back to my own bed. somehow i thought the most nihilistic and logical 2 sentences that perhaps any person has ever thunk. by the time my pillows had hit my mattress, my divine revelation was gone. presumably, i will never never remember the bean curd of wisdom i recieved last night.
it probably influenced my subsequent psychadelic birch-tree dream greatly, though. a few girls and i caught butterflies in a painted swimming pool at the end. i can't tell the best parts. they're too good. with words, they would be ruined.
[a ring around the moon, last feb. 21. this is how it really looked.. no camera tricks here.]
29 January 2009
28 January 2009
El Paraíso También Puede Ser Repugnante
i wrote this in the fall for the web site i interned with this summer. if you feel like practicing your español, look here. my translation here is pretty awkward, but you'll get the idea.
elzocalo.cl
Paradise can also be disgusting
By Andrea Mabry - USA
1 September 2008
To me it seems that wherever you look in Valparaíso, there is some kind of art, whether its' a mural, graffiti, handmade clothing or decoration in the micros [public buses]. There is a staggering amount of art in this city. It is clear that Valparaíso is a city of arts, no matter where you look. One example is the ex-Cárcel [ex-prison]. It is wonderful to me, a foreigner; this building with a very questionable past that has been converted into a house of paintings and sculptures. The idea may be the most crazy but also the most intelligent that I have ever heard.
And I'm sure you've heard this statement many times. After all, aspects of the "intangible heritage" of Valpo that make the city a cultural capital of the world are plain to see.
But why are some people so enthusiastic about the idea of destroying the ex-Cárcel and building a pristine cultural center building instead of recovering the ex-Cárcel? The same question holds for the city of Valparaíso in general. It is also worth asking why in the world anyone wants to build giant corporate condominiums amid the towers of shipping containers in a city with a questionable and dirty character.
Let me explain. When I say that the character of the city is dirty I say it in the best way possible, like when my American friends say jokingly that I am a "dirty hippie." The experience of being in Valparaíso is much more difficult to explain, than, for example, saying that New York City is busy. In order to describe Valpo with accuracy, you must include the dirt, the dog shit everywhere you step, the many homeless on the streets. So, it is difficult to explain this city, I think, to someone who has not been there.
But let's talk about the ex-Cárcel. When I entered the compound for the first time, I was overwhelmed by a sense of profundity. During a long micro ride that morning, a friend told me about a guide in Villa Grimaldi, Santiago, a former prisoner who says he was tortured in the Valparaíso jail during the dictatorship. Well, this place where horrible things may have happened is now completely covered with works of art, the majority of which are impressive.
Even when looking at walls covered with the most colorful paintings, the ex-Cárcel is still a little frightening for a lone girl. The place is full of feeling--when you step inside the entrance it hits you like a wall of bricks. It's easy to feel very small.
Some people want to replace the complex with a new multi-million dollar building. They would demolish something rich with culture and filled with history to build a structured place for the artists who work there. This contradicts everything that I found Valpo to be. I think the artists would feel confined if they worked in a new building. Valparaíso is dirty, and people paint graffiti on the walls, whether or not they are good painters. You cannot structure art. Culture can not be created on command. You can't say 'Good. Begin. Now make something. " The ex-Cárcel is not beautiful in itself. It's sublime. From it surges a sense of beauty and fear, wonder and amazement and revulsion. It is a torturous love, and the city of Valparaíso is the same. Valparaíso is a different kind of paradise from what most would expect.
The very idea of taking an old prison and turning it into a mecca of art, theater and music is quite revolutionary and gives new meaning to the past. It is, somehow, a place that honors the past while at the same time the clandestine character of the city. The ex-Cárcel and all that it represents are the kind of things that define a city, and the type of things that many people are jealous of.
Even while traveling in other cities around the world, I have never found places like the ex-Cárcel, and now they tell me that someone decided to get rid of not-very-kosher building and replace it with a cookie-cutter clean one. If a demolition crane helped in the destruction of the ex-Cárcel it would be a blow to all the people of Valparaíso, and a message that they want to convert Valparaíso into another generic big city like many others in the world.
elzocalo.cl
Paradise can also be disgusting
By Andrea Mabry - USA
1 September 2008
To me it seems that wherever you look in Valparaíso, there is some kind of art, whether its' a mural, graffiti, handmade clothing or decoration in the micros [public buses]. There is a staggering amount of art in this city. It is clear that Valparaíso is a city of arts, no matter where you look. One example is the ex-Cárcel [ex-prison]. It is wonderful to me, a foreigner; this building with a very questionable past that has been converted into a house of paintings and sculptures. The idea may be the most crazy but also the most intelligent that I have ever heard.
And I'm sure you've heard this statement many times. After all, aspects of the "intangible heritage" of Valpo that make the city a cultural capital of the world are plain to see.
But why are some people so enthusiastic about the idea of destroying the ex-Cárcel and building a pristine cultural center building instead of recovering the ex-Cárcel? The same question holds for the city of Valparaíso in general. It is also worth asking why in the world anyone wants to build giant corporate condominiums amid the towers of shipping containers in a city with a questionable and dirty character.
Let me explain. When I say that the character of the city is dirty I say it in the best way possible, like when my American friends say jokingly that I am a "dirty hippie." The experience of being in Valparaíso is much more difficult to explain, than, for example, saying that New York City is busy. In order to describe Valpo with accuracy, you must include the dirt, the dog shit everywhere you step, the many homeless on the streets. So, it is difficult to explain this city, I think, to someone who has not been there.
But let's talk about the ex-Cárcel. When I entered the compound for the first time, I was overwhelmed by a sense of profundity. During a long micro ride that morning, a friend told me about a guide in Villa Grimaldi, Santiago, a former prisoner who says he was tortured in the Valparaíso jail during the dictatorship. Well, this place where horrible things may have happened is now completely covered with works of art, the majority of which are impressive.
Even when looking at walls covered with the most colorful paintings, the ex-Cárcel is still a little frightening for a lone girl. The place is full of feeling--when you step inside the entrance it hits you like a wall of bricks. It's easy to feel very small.
Some people want to replace the complex with a new multi-million dollar building. They would demolish something rich with culture and filled with history to build a structured place for the artists who work there. This contradicts everything that I found Valpo to be. I think the artists would feel confined if they worked in a new building. Valparaíso is dirty, and people paint graffiti on the walls, whether or not they are good painters. You cannot structure art. Culture can not be created on command. You can't say 'Good. Begin. Now make something. " The ex-Cárcel is not beautiful in itself. It's sublime. From it surges a sense of beauty and fear, wonder and amazement and revulsion. It is a torturous love, and the city of Valparaíso is the same. Valparaíso is a different kind of paradise from what most would expect.
The very idea of taking an old prison and turning it into a mecca of art, theater and music is quite revolutionary and gives new meaning to the past. It is, somehow, a place that honors the past while at the same time the clandestine character of the city. The ex-Cárcel and all that it represents are the kind of things that define a city, and the type of things that many people are jealous of.
Even while traveling in other cities around the world, I have never found places like the ex-Cárcel, and now they tell me that someone decided to get rid of not-very-kosher building and replace it with a cookie-cutter clean one. If a demolition crane helped in the destruction of the ex-Cárcel it would be a blow to all the people of Valparaíso, and a message that they want to convert Valparaíso into another generic big city like many others in the world.
23 January 2009
thinking about tahini sauce
a black man with a beautiful voice sang a song as he walked under my window just now. he will never know i heard him, but i am very glad that i did...
mr. president, mr. president
january 20 was, for me, a high and a low.
i regret not having written about this sooner, while it was freshest in my mind, but not having a personal computer and the presence of several pairs of over-shoulder eyes are a pretty strong deterrent for me. rob, micah and i woke up tuesday later than we'd planned. left fairfax (finally) at 10 and arrived at the national mall at 11:15, just in time to penguin up and waddle to a spot near a giant jumbotron. during the hour-long metro ride to D.C. i’d had nothing to hold on to but rob's shoulder and a stranger's back. that made no difference though, since there was no way i could have fallen. too many people packed into that tube for anyone to fall over.
i wondered: how long would it take this many humans to convert all the oxygen in this train to carbon dioxide?
the ceremony itself both disgusted me and filled me with an incredible sense of empowerment. each time the giant tv's showed george bush, the whole mall booed. a collective display of verbal insult at one of the most important ceremonies that takes place in our country. why was this necessary? i'm not a gw fan, but i certainly will not publicly humiliate the man. especially in the last minutes of his presidency, when it no longer matters. i was ashamed.
just after we had chosen our outpost, i left the friends. with a camera on each shoulder, i walked and weaved through masses of people. i'd hoped to come home from this with a couple of portfolio-worthy shots, but i was intensely frustrated when the typical news shots seemed to be nowhere to be found. flags waved, kids sat hoisted upon dads’ shoulders, every face gleamed with so much pride. it was there, i just wasn’t seeing it.
after a while, i decided to rejoin my friends and participate in the inauguration as a citizen, not a photographer.
during the ceremony, all i could see were the heads of those surrounding me and the jumbotron a few dozen meters ahead. but no matter, i was there, a part of history. that’s what i’d come for. whoops of joy and ‘amen’s echoed around me as, with teary eyes, i watched my president being sworn in.
perhaps my favorite part of all, though, came after most people had already begun walking toward the mall’s exits. my compatriots and i gawked at all the trash on the ground and wondered how people could have trashed the space so well in one morning. i noticed a lone girl carrying a trash bag and decided to follow suit. as more people saw what was happening, more took the initiative to join in. in less than five minutes, all the trash in the area had been collected into a few bags and i was touched by the teamwork of complete strangers. working together to make change!
it took at least an hour to get off the mall. this was a surprisingly calm process, as was everything else that day, but i was glad to be out of the mess.
we worked our way through all the various monuments and memorials that inhabit the space between the lincoln memorial and the washington monument. took many photos, found left-behind scarves and gloves (some keepers!) and i placed my tiny flag in front of the vietnam memorial. i have so much respect for that place, and i credit it all to reading rainbow's episode about its creator.
after pizza and much more walking, we metroed back to fairfax, said a quick goodbye to the friends we'd stayed with, and got on the road, saying to ourselves the whole time that we were simply so glad we'd made the trip.
i regret not having written about this sooner, while it was freshest in my mind, but not having a personal computer and the presence of several pairs of over-shoulder eyes are a pretty strong deterrent for me. rob, micah and i woke up tuesday later than we'd planned. left fairfax (finally) at 10 and arrived at the national mall at 11:15, just in time to penguin up and waddle to a spot near a giant jumbotron. during the hour-long metro ride to D.C. i’d had nothing to hold on to but rob's shoulder and a stranger's back. that made no difference though, since there was no way i could have fallen. too many people packed into that tube for anyone to fall over.
i wondered: how long would it take this many humans to convert all the oxygen in this train to carbon dioxide?
the ceremony itself both disgusted me and filled me with an incredible sense of empowerment. each time the giant tv's showed george bush, the whole mall booed. a collective display of verbal insult at one of the most important ceremonies that takes place in our country. why was this necessary? i'm not a gw fan, but i certainly will not publicly humiliate the man. especially in the last minutes of his presidency, when it no longer matters. i was ashamed.
just after we had chosen our outpost, i left the friends. with a camera on each shoulder, i walked and weaved through masses of people. i'd hoped to come home from this with a couple of portfolio-worthy shots, but i was intensely frustrated when the typical news shots seemed to be nowhere to be found. flags waved, kids sat hoisted upon dads’ shoulders, every face gleamed with so much pride. it was there, i just wasn’t seeing it.
after a while, i decided to rejoin my friends and participate in the inauguration as a citizen, not a photographer.
during the ceremony, all i could see were the heads of those surrounding me and the jumbotron a few dozen meters ahead. but no matter, i was there, a part of history. that’s what i’d come for. whoops of joy and ‘amen’s echoed around me as, with teary eyes, i watched my president being sworn in.
perhaps my favorite part of all, though, came after most people had already begun walking toward the mall’s exits. my compatriots and i gawked at all the trash on the ground and wondered how people could have trashed the space so well in one morning. i noticed a lone girl carrying a trash bag and decided to follow suit. as more people saw what was happening, more took the initiative to join in. in less than five minutes, all the trash in the area had been collected into a few bags and i was touched by the teamwork of complete strangers. working together to make change!
it took at least an hour to get off the mall. this was a surprisingly calm process, as was everything else that day, but i was glad to be out of the mess.
we worked our way through all the various monuments and memorials that inhabit the space between the lincoln memorial and the washington monument. took many photos, found left-behind scarves and gloves (some keepers!) and i placed my tiny flag in front of the vietnam memorial. i have so much respect for that place, and i credit it all to reading rainbow's episode about its creator.
after pizza and much more walking, we metroed back to fairfax, said a quick goodbye to the friends we'd stayed with, and got on the road, saying to ourselves the whole time that we were simply so glad we'd made the trip.
17 January 2009
who sells bathing suits in january?
i dream of the day when my laptop's hard drive is large enough to hold a few of my pictures! they all live on an external right now, it's a little bit frustrating. everything takes longer.
in a few hours i'm leaving with rob and a few others (maybe a few, maybe one.. a surprise for the morning) por D.C.! the magnitude of what this inauguration will be is something my mind just can't fathom. how many millions of people will be there? man. anyway, i am totally pumped for it. my clothes are not nearly warm enough but what the hell? someone and i decided that this could potentially be the woodstock of our generation. when our kids someday ask "were you at obama's inauguration?" we dont want to have to tell them no. plus, what a big deal. i just want to watch everyone else who's there. i certainly do not expect to see obama, even on one of the imaginary tvs they've got set up.
this afternoon as i was driving along jack warner pkwy, the golden pre-sunset light made the barren trees on the other side of the river glow like a baby's mama should. i got so caught up in watchingthe trees and their reflections that i drifted into the next lane... luckily there was no one right next to me. phew!
in a few hours i'm leaving with rob and a few others (maybe a few, maybe one.. a surprise for the morning) por D.C.! the magnitude of what this inauguration will be is something my mind just can't fathom. how many millions of people will be there? man. anyway, i am totally pumped for it. my clothes are not nearly warm enough but what the hell? someone and i decided that this could potentially be the woodstock of our generation. when our kids someday ask "were you at obama's inauguration?" we dont want to have to tell them no. plus, what a big deal. i just want to watch everyone else who's there. i certainly do not expect to see obama, even on one of the imaginary tvs they've got set up.
this afternoon as i was driving along jack warner pkwy, the golden pre-sunset light made the barren trees on the other side of the river glow like a baby's mama should. i got so caught up in watchingthe trees and their reflections that i drifted into the next lane... luckily there was no one right next to me. phew!
11 January 2009
can a cat come on a date? please?
what an interesting day.
i began by finishing the first chapter of The Artist's Way, a book i'm reading for a class. neat stuff. it's all about unblocking your creative side and discovering new outlets for creativity. hey, we could all use some of that. i'm especially hopeful about this, as it might be a kind of guiding
voice to motivate me while i'm trying to really get back into photo like i want to be. i just don't get excited about it anymore like i used to. of course, there will be times, like today while the sun was setting, when i have the inspiration to pick up my camera. but most days... no. that is not something i like admitting to myself or anyone but it's the truth. i need to find a story, something to focus on. the problem is i'm thinking about it too much. it shouldn't be that way.
good good.
[everyone should go here. Ave Maria Grotto in Cullman, Ala. a monk spent his life making cement sculptures of buildings. they're incredible.]
i began by finishing the first chapter of The Artist's Way, a book i'm reading for a class. neat stuff. it's all about unblocking your creative side and discovering new outlets for creativity. hey, we could all use some of that. i'm especially hopeful about this, as it might be a kind of guiding
voice to motivate me while i'm trying to really get back into photo like i want to be. i just don't get excited about it anymore like i used to. of course, there will be times, like today while the sun was setting, when i have the inspiration to pick up my camera. but most days... no. that is not something i like admitting to myself or anyone but it's the truth. i need to find a story, something to focus on. the problem is i'm thinking about it too much. it shouldn't be that way.good good.
[everyone should go here. Ave Maria Grotto in Cullman, Ala. a monk spent his life making cement sculptures of buildings. they're incredible.]
04 January 2009
keys to your place
the rain is coming down hard tonight, cat's going nutty because of the thunder and lightning.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
