Benches

Banff. 2010.

Books

Oakland. 2010.

Staying Calm in Earthquake Country

L.A. 2007.

Simplicity soothes me down, gives me space to think. The books are more of a to-do list than a subset of options. I feel guilty for kicking Teddy out of bed, but silly for keeping her in. Still, the clean surface of the shelf is a place to put things, a place to lay out the immediate pieces of life, to examine and sort them. Then away they go, to make room for tomorrow's coins, lint, found objects, buttons, notes, earrings, bracelet, dollar bills, bus pass, stickers, hair clips, lists, headphones, tissues, flowers, floss, pens, chapstick, and all the other things than found their way into my pockets while I lived in LA.

When I wipe the grime of my stress and depression from my memories, I find that I loved LA, and I miss it. The warm evenings; the path down to the beach; the night rides across town; running along old--but soon to be reused--railroad tracks; views from a grassy cliff; rides in the steep canyons; the nearness of the desert.

The people on top and the plates beneath: both hold against each other with a fierce tension that everyone knows and everyone ignores. An earthquake; a riot. Then tension again. A dry, dessicated land, full of orange trees and lawns and immigrants, all hungry for water and their own small piece of earth. A land still so new that two years makes you a native.

I miss you.

Her Shoes

Boston. 2005.

July. Warm even with air conditioning. Languid air drifting through large buildings; green sprouting, straining outward; moisture in the lungs and on the skin. Sleeping with the window open, with no blankets on; a sheet, maybe. Dressing in clean, cool clothes.

I miss the varied certainties of Boston. The red brick, the modern architecture. The large, protected open spaces surrounded by sweating, crowded streets. Polluted, accessible water ways. Heat-white skies in summer.

I miss this moment, when a woman I barely knew lay still for me, while I photographed her hand, her calves. Her shoes.