(Blog It Forward – an amazing, on-going mash-up of 300 bloggers made possible by the hard work and general awesomeness of Victoria and Hijiri.)
Hello.
Did the title of my post get Peter Cetera stuck in your brain? Do any of you feel like you’re at a bad dance in a gym somewhere and you’re almost tempted to go see if someone is crying in the bathroom? I hope so.
Anyway. It’s been awfully quiet around here, hasn’t it?
But that’s okay, because sometimes the only way for us to find inspiration is to sit and listen. To be quiet and patient. To give voice to those parts of us we have made quiet for too long, and to give rest to those other parts we’ve been running ragged.
Funny what we find when we do this. We find inspiration where we may least expect it:
in the quiet moments, when we are normally not very quiet
in the sounds of the ocean at sunset, rather than in all its sunshine glory
in a best friend, who can see through all your armor (photo by Ashley)
in slowly learning to unkink the inner loops, when they are so full of knots (photo by Kari)
in the coasts of California, which are so easy to take for granted
in carefully placed, beautifully written words, even though they may take more time than images or movies or songs
in listening to ourselves, no matter how hard it is, because it’s the best thing we can do
and in shutting up and letting our cameras say what they need to, just like we should with any good friend
I have so enjoyed seeing what inspires everyone else these past few weeks. It’s been colorful and happy and bright and super fun. It’s actually brought me a lot of inspiration when inspiration has, truthfully, been lacking. I’ve been in a verbal mood lately, and since I tend to blurt a lot more on my tumblr and be a little more outrageous there, it’s gotten most of my attention. Here I am more careful and considered, a little calmer. Not as wild and funny, that’s for sure. It’s like the two halves of my brain. Anyway, seeing all your inspiration has inspired me to try and balance the two again. Thank you, mash-uppers!
Don’t forget to check out the lovely girl who follows me, Oh, Mishka. She’ll be posting tomorrow.
Right now, if you’re like me, and I think a lot of you are, you’re thinking to yourself: Oh my GOD, 2009. You were something else. And not only that, 2009? Where did you go? I mean, what a goddamn year it’s been. How did it go so fast? Seriously: What the hell happened?
We’re all wondering how we got here. I know I am. So you probably are too. It’s the end of the year and that’s what we do. Every single year. It’s like each year goes faster than the one before it and we can’t keep hold of them and we’re left with that bewildering sense: Where are they going? How are they going faster and faster like we’re in the Millenium Falcon and Chewie just sent us into warp speed and please, can we slow down?
I suppose this is why we do projects like 365. Or end of year retro-/intro-spectives, like this. So we can stop, at some point, and sit and take stock. Maybe to be in the moment, sure. But more: to sift through the pieces that make up the past as we look toward the mostly unfathomable future. All those little stars zinging by us like streaks, the olive on our spaceship staying on by what feels like sheer willpower.
These pieces of the past: they are tiny instants that change us forever. Momentous occasions from which we think we will never recover, only to find ourselves walking upright in the blink of an eye, with a fortitude we never thought we possessed. Daily repetitions and routines we only recognize in recollection, peccadilloes and foibles and minutiae that come to define us as much – if not more – than how we tried to present ourselves, what we tried to construct as our unassailable identities, our well-crafted exteriors.
And that future: We would like to think we know where we are headed. What we’ll be doing. Who will be with us. Where we’ll be. But the truth is that we have only our feelings, about what we want, what we hope for, what we’re working toward. We have feelings about the people who surround us. And most importantly, we have the feelings about ourselves. More than anything, this is what will direct and guide us, from day to day, from year to year.
Try and imagine where you’ll be this time next year. Picture it! You can. But you also can’t. Not entirely. Because you can never know exactly where life will take you, what will happen, where you’ll go left when you should most definitely have gone right. Or where you very much went right and thank heavens for that.
So serious, I know. And it seems a little odd to write this, since my last post was about the end of another year – my 365 project. But even though I did my 365 during 2009 – even though my 365 encompassed most of 2009, in fact – 2009 was something different. We all demarcate time from New Year’s to New Year’s, whether we want to or not. As this crazy year draws to a close (can I get a finally? and an amen? and a THANK FUCKING GOD?), I had to say something about it. To myself, in a way, but also to all of you. Because I feel so disconnected from so many things – from blogging, from flickr, from twitter, from everything. This year has taken everything out of me, but it’s also given me so much. I’ve had to take a break from a lot to try and focus on so much else. Let me try and break it down.
I don’t know what you’ve experienced, but for me 2009 has been… a year.
When I told you about my 365, I was thinking of a year within a year. About photography, about life and love and learning. But about a specific project that I had set as a goal and had accomplished. Looking back at 2009 is different, because getting through a year isn’t about accomplishing a project, even one filled with amazing lessons. Getting through a year is obviously about much more: It’s about living. And getting through 2009? Was something else altogether.
2009 simultaneously feels like it was the best and worst year of my life.
I mean, how else to describe it? It was the year of getting your teeth kicked out, picking them back up and finding an amazing reason to smile, only to go through it all over again.
Finding myself with a very real physical health problem, one there was no mistaking… and working toward the very best solution, the best way to be healthy, with the best medicines, the best diet and exercise, and the best support network imaginable.
Spending a lot of time alone, but spending it feeling a powerful sense of loneliness… and then finding the best, truest friend I could ever imagine finding in my life (two of them, actually, if you also count my camera).
Closing one door I was unsure I would ever be able to even walk through… and finding another one open before me just a few months later, one that has helped put me on a path to real and true happiness – inside and out.
On the first day of 2009, you may remember what I asked for in the new year. I didn’t ask for much: I just wanted things to be nice. I asked for the year to go easy on me, to allow me to be surrounded by people who were happy and nice. And you know, while maybe I didn’t get 100% of what I ask for – 2009 wasn’t easy – I did technically get most of what I asked for. I was surrounded by happy and nice. In fact, I had an overabundance of that, and I will be eternally grateful for this as long as I live.
It allowed me to find something inside myself. Something that ends up looking like this.
Which is clearly something I’d like to find a lot more of in the coming years, y’know?
So I’m taking this opportunity to be logical: If I get what I ask for, it makes sense I should keep asking for what I want. And that means in 2010?
I WANT THINGS TO BE FUCKING AWESOME.
But of course, that’s partly up to me. It’s going to take a lot of focus, a lot of hard work, a lot of dedication. I have a feeling I won’t be around as much as I would like – here, on flickr, in real life, anywhere. There are some big challenges ahead, and maybe some changes to be made. I’m going to be take the amazing gifts this year gave me – and all the gifts from the years before – and I’m going to put them to good use.
I miss everyone a lot, but I hope you’ll stick with me. I’m going to need a little village now more than ever.
2009 taught me some big lessons – not just that it’s worth asking for what you want, but also that to get it, you’ve got to make it happen. So you know what? Let’s do this thing.
On 4 November 2008, I decided to start a project. Not just any project, but one that required dedication, discipline, and a lot of creativity. I am notorious for getting excited about projects and then, halfway through wrapping the first batch of homemade caramels, wondering what the hell I was thinking and wishing I could throw the rest of the unwrapped caramels away in order to sprawl on the couch and watch re-runs of CSI.
But this time I decided I would stick to it. It wasn’t just any project, after all: It was a photography project. And photography was the first thing in a long time, maybe ever, that had made sense to me. Not just brought me joy, like singing and dancing had, but made sense. Photography was like a new friend who wanted to teach me a secret language. Photography was me really having to shut up and listen. Photography was me getting the opportunity to be alone but still be in the world, interacting with it, seeing it the way I’d always seen it in my mind but didn’t know how to make visible to anyone else. So this project? I was going to stick to it. I was going to go all the way.
Three hundred and sixty-five days later, here I am. I have taken a photo every day for a year. I can’t lie to you: I missed one day. It was last week, if you can believe it. Just too stressed out, too tired, too distracted by things, and I plum forgot to even go near a camera all day. But by that point, I was okay with it, and here’s why:
The 365 Project was never about anyone but me. Yes, I posted a lot of my images to Flickr. In the beginning, I was diligent about that. But as time went on I felt it more and more. The project was to help me improve as a photographer. It was to help me see the world in as many new ways as possible. And most of all, it was to record my year for myself, to create a body of work I could look back on and be proud of but also hold dear.
Missing a day? Tells me more about where I was at that moment than any random photograph could have done.
(And also I’ve taken so many damn photos this year I’m pretty sure I’ve made up for it 100 fold. Ahem.)
In part, I began to hold photos back because I realized the importance of silence, of editing, and of privacy. This year has been a transformation of sorts. From 04 November 2008 to 03 November 2009, the changes have been significant. So much has happened, so much I haven’t shared with you. Some of you know how difficult things have been, the troubles and worries. Many more of you know the good things, the happiness and the celebrations. However much I’ve shared or kept quiet, I’m glad you were here for it. Thank you for being eyes, ears, shoulders, and friends.
We really do have frozen banana stands here in Orange County. They may not be shaped like giant bananas (although their signs are) but we have them.
Two of them, in fact. I’ve just only shot one. These are shots I took during two different weekends in July when Pablo came to visit me. Both times we went to Balboa Island (a mere 10 minute drive) to get chilaquiles (the very same best chilaquiles I spoiled Ashley with, of course). But more about those – and Balboa Island – in another post, when we meander once again through Orange County…
On Friday, the 31st of July 2009, I put my cat to sleep.
(now you are made of light)
My cat’s name was Lint, but I almost always called her Linty. Well, I almost always called her so many things – an endless and endlessly changing selection of affectionate and kooky nicknames: Linty, Linticus, Linticus the Mighty, Lintl Loaf, Loaf, Lintolian, Linty Bean, Bean, Fuzzy Pants, Tiny Fuzzy Pants, Tiny Tuna Pants, Pants, Fuzzbutt, Fatty, The Mighty Stinkmaker, Green-eyed Ladyface Kitty, Mouse, Wondermouse, Bubbles, Minou, Meems, Bunny, and so many others I can’t think of. Fifteen years is a lot of years of nickname giving. A lot of names came and went.
But her name really was Linty. Not like the little specks you lint-roll from your clothing (although she produced plenty of those too), but like the big poochy wads of soft deep grey lint from the dryer, warm and squishy. Especially if you’ve neglected to clean between each and every dry cycle, and there’s some hint of dark blue in the deep grey, which itself is heavily studded with sticky-out kitty hairs. And that dryer lint, of course, trails around after you. As you shake it off one hand, it bounces to the other; as it descends to the floor it finds you and trails behind you, still warm, still soft, covering all the newly clean clothing you tried to protect with a fine film of lint. That was my little girl.
Linty was not all grey. She was grey and white. A grey cape that went down in a V over her ears and face – except for the tip of one ear that was the sweetest transluscent pink, especially when the sun shone through it – all the way back to her tail. Which was the narrowest, silliest tail I’d ever seen on a cat. Somehow she got the wrong tail, a pointy too-skinny tail with faint rings on it. The rest of her was white: around her tiny pink nose, under her chin, her legs and her feet, and her silly hangy-down pouch of a belly that swung when she ran. That tummy, the best of all tummies, was white with pink undertones, where her skin shone through. She was so very white, as she kept herself perfectly clean. Her paw pads were the very pinkest little pearls.
And then there were her eyes: The most spectacular green eyes I’ve ever seen on a cat.
The Lint and I were together for 15 years. I got her when I was 19 and a junior in college. Linty was a teensy tiny kitten, at most 5 or 6 weeks old, still attempting to suckle because she and her sister (who became my roommate’s cat) had been abandoned (maybe their mama kitty had died) and then been discovered by a crazy Berkeley cat lady. Linty especially had plenty of health problems, fleas and worms and gum disease (almost all her teeth behind her canines had to be removed) – just all sorts of other things, and she was the runt of the litter.
She bonded to me and only me.
You can see where this is going.
Over the next many years, Linty would go with me, wherever I went. We moved from Berkeley to San Francisco to New York to Washington, DC to Orange County to Berkeley to Orange County again. The longest we were ever apart was a few weeks. For many years we lived alone, just the two of us, a girl and her cat, talking to each other in our little voices, developing a whole understanding that people always thought was weird and insane until they came over and saw it in person and understood it immediately.
My pops once said to me: “I’ve never seen a cat look at a person the way that cat looks at you. Never.”
I was Linty’s entire world. She rarely, if ever, took to other people. It wasn’t that she was mean to them, although she did hiss now and again. It was more that she’d refuse to come say hi in the first place. Or she’d do a bit of coy flirting and then head back for another nap, having decided there was no point in befriending whoever it was. Occasionally she’d voice serious displeasure at a person’s presence. Very, very rarely she would take to someone. And she was always right.
Hers was the little face I saw nearly every day for 15 years. She was the one constant in an ever-churning sea of growing up, becoming, learning, failing, figuring out, changing, moving, being. Few things made me as happy as coming home to a dark bedroom and quickly switching on the light in order to see a tiny little face in the middle of a big bed, sitting there, looking at me, blinking a sleepy and happy hello: Squinty Linty.
She was the only real routine I ever stuck to, the animal who never should have lived past two months but made it to 15 years, the cat who drove me crazy at times, the one I only once considered getting rid of in a fit of stupidity at a very unhappy (and young) point in my life. The creature who was loyal and loving to me, who would yell at me with delight and anger and flop on the floor and pound on me with her little footies when I’d return from a trip, who had annoying habits that drove me nuts in the best possible manner, who DEMANDED steak and corn on the cob and eggs with cheese, who allowed me to manhandle her in ways you’d think a cat would never tolerate, who let me cram my face into her belly and kiss her toes when I most needed it, when stress and sadness got to be too much. She really was my best little friend.
We were both beginners, out in the world, and we found each other, that tiny kitten and I. So on that recent Friday afternoon, I did the only thing I could for someone who had been so loyal and true: I ended her suffering. It came quickly and I did not expect it to happen quite as suddenly as it did: one day she was climbing in my lap, the next we were at the vet, and I was making the decision. Cats are masters of hiding pain, and she had been hiding by sleeping in the closet and not eating as much. She had cancer in her intestines – we think lymphoma. She had lost a lot of weight, more than I even realized. I could have done a biopsy, tried to battle it, to save her, but at what cost? On that Friday, she was so clearly sick and in pain, with a rough coat, and when I found her breathing shallowly, panting and shaking, her whole body hot, her eyes sunken and dark, I knew. To try and save her would have been to torture her. As much as I did not want to lose her, I wanted even less to cause her any more suffering. She had given me love for 15 years. There was only one thing I could do.
The vet agreed with me – while it was the hardest decision, it was also the best. The assistants brought me Linty wrapped in someone else’s old tea towel, all pink and white and green. She was scared and upset, just like I was, but I held her in my lap and tried to soothe her, kissed her head, scritched her cheeks and chin, kissed her toes, looked at her sad belly that had been shaved for the ultrasound, and talked to her through my tears. The vet, who was so kind, came in and asked if I was ready. She told me it would be very fast, and it was, so fast it still makes my head spin. Within seconds my little kitty’s head was on my knee and she was gone.
I held her for a moment more, kissed her little foot one more time, her little nose. The vet shut Linty’s green eyes one final time, and lifted her out of my arms. She took her away, and I broke down.
Later I decided I would not take her ashes. I had nowhere to sprinkle them; after all, where did Linty like to go besides out on the deck? She slept in her donut, on my bed, and followed me from room to room. And keeping her ashes – while I could respect that some people would want to have them, I knew the ashes weren’t her anymore. Even the body wasn’t, as much as I desperately wanted it to be, those pink toes and the little ear tip. I let it go. I still have her, in my heart, in my photos, in a video, and in a box I created with her little catnip hemp bags and mousie toys and a clump of fur from the very last time I brushed her. These things are more her. I can see her in them.
And while I wish I could have buried her in the garden in Berkeley, so beautiful flowers could grow from her, I’m glad she died in Orange County. For that’s the real, true reason I liked Orange County. Linty loved the condo we lived in there. It was her favorite place ever.
I wanted to scan the photos I have from when she was a tiny kitten, but one of them is stuck to the glass of the frame, and the others are scattered in books and piles. Some time soon, I’ll add them to set, and to this post. For now, I give you these, most of which are recent. One of which is me, the day after she died. And I include a very important video (the only one I ever shot) and what I consider to be the single best photo I ever took of her. Oh noes!
Forgive me this long post. But she was the best kitty for me, and my heart has a big Linty-shaped hole in it these days. I miss her terribly, and after 15 years, I wanted to remember her the best way I know how. Thank you.
(on an adventure with my friend Bradley, Orange County, CA)
So far as I can remember, I’ve never written an ode to this season. I’ve never been its most ardent follower, its peppiest cheerleader, its Number One Fan. I mean, summer is great and all, but give me spring or autumn any day, with more moderate temperatures and those beautiful tones and colors. You know, colors that are more than just of the bright sun-shiny primary variety.
Yes, summer did often mean amzing things like camp when I was younger – and thus an escape from the small-town mean girls who made the other nine months of the year seem an eternity. Or, in high school, the odd jobs were certainly odd, but they were often an odd sort of fun too. And my birthday is in summer! But summer? As a my favorite season? I just can’t remember a time that my heart called out for it: Summer! You! Are! The! One?
I think there’s a reason I’ve lived in Southern California on and off for nearly five years and can count the number of times I’ve been to the beach on both hands.
But oh. Summer. This summer. Has been different.
Summer is about sunshine and good times, about endless days and ice cream, about friendship and warmth. Or it’s supposed to be, right? But when things are turbulent or sad, then summer is hot and hard and frustrating. The big difference is that this summer, there’s happiness. So much happiness.
Sure, there are problems too but they don’t seem so tough when you’re standing on a beach in Laguna, with your friend Bradley and his Mamiya, taking a photo of the setting sun glinting off the choppy ocean with your cellphone so you can send it to your true love who is in San Francisco and who will be here to visit you next week.
When you’re filled with sunshine and sand and ocean water, clutching cameras lent to you and given to you, watching the sky as it turns shades of hazy pastel you never knew were possible in red, white, & blue July. The churning waves a pale silvery aqua tinged with the last baby blues and violets of the sky, a nearly improbably metallic sheen, constantly heaving in an irregular rhythm. The sun showing its last rays of gold and yellow, then suddenly deep burnt orange, the legendary sky of California, setting off rocky bluffs with palm trees and an endless ocean that travels all the way to the other side of the world. And you try to remember every detail, every moment as best you can because you can’t capture any of this perfection because you’ve already run out of film and your phone battery is dead and you didn’t bring a digital, and you laugh and laugh, your pants soaked by sudden waves and your hair full of salt and wind.
I’m sitting in a bright, airy room, where a cool breeze wends its way up from the ocean and blows the curtains to and fro. I’m not near enough to smell the waves, the endless varieties of suntan lotion, or the evening bonfires, but the room is close enough that the wind can carry their promises and to cool me down on this warm 4th of July. About three and a half miles away is that vast ocean, and soon the sun will set behind it. So soon that it’s filling every corner with liquidy golden light, the kind that on more than one evening has made me run after it, chasing it with cameras and with my whole heart, for that one shot. The one.
A lot of people have a lot of ideas about Southern California. A lot of preconceived notions. Especially when it comes to Orange County. Some consider it paradise, others think it’s nothing short of hell. Having spent a fair amount of time here – more than four years at one point, and now back for who knows how long – I feel I’ve gotten to know parts of it fairly well. At times, I’ve loathed it (and for good reason). At others, I’ve come to like it quite a bit. If not quite love it, then at least to accept and like it for what it is and what it offers. A sort of warts-and-all appreciation, if you will.
Southern California – at least the parts I know – is not always what a lot of you think it is. Some parts of it most certainly are. But a lot of it is also vastly different. Beyond the pockets of extreme wealth, beyond the perception that everyone here is white and conservative and sort of an asshole, beyond the notion that it’s a sprawling megaplex of interlocked suburbs, beyond and behind and between and inside the strip malls, there are worlds many of you have no idea exist. Food that can compete with – and occasionally kick the ass of – the best I’ve had in some of the coolest, most cosmopolitan cities in the world.
I’m still trying to find “home,” and this place may never feel like it to me. Even so, Orange County and I have put up with each other and have come to find at least a little grudging respect. I have no idea how long I’ll be here, but before I go I’d like to show you what I know of this place. What it means to me, and what you can find here. It’s not just The OC. It’s also Orange County. And then there’s the rest of Southern California too.
I’ll start with what I see when I take walks around my neighborhood. This is your first view of Costa Mesa. There have been and will be others, but here are some shots from my city, on some quiet recent evenings.
Tonight, of course, is the 4th of July. In Costa Mesa, fireworks are legal, and since it’s only one of two cities in the county where that’s the case, this won’t be a quiet evening. So if you’ll excuse me, I’ll wish you a very happy Independence Day. Because in the tradition of this great holiday, I have to go blow some shit up.
There is an ocean called the Pacific. It’s a very, very big ocean. So big you don’t often think about how big it is, how very wide, or how very deep. So big that you don’t realize it goes all the way around to the other side of the world. That somewhere there is another side of it, and that on that other side of it, the same sun you see set behind your ocean is very busy rising above it.
On the other side of the great big giant Pacific Ocean are a lot of countries. In them live quite a lot of people. But of all those countries and of all those people, it so happened that two of them looked at that sun, the one that was doing its daily business rising and setting, in much the same way. They kept chasing after it, trying to capture it and collect it.
It was through this odd little endeavor that these two people – a lady named Ashley and a lady named Leah – bumped into each other one day. They waved a friendly hello and kept on their respective ways, collecting and chasing and wrangling. Then another day, another sun, another wave hello.
And that’s how a friendship began.
Some months later, the lady named Ashley found herself on a plane crossing that very big ocean. She learned just how big that ocean is and just how long it takes to cross it and just how tired you can become sitting and doing nothing for that many hours. Her friend Leah picked her up on the other side of the ocean, the side where the sun sets.
They went on some mad adventures. Driving up the coast in a dash. Nearly plummeting off cliffs and bridges marked very poorly by the California Transit Authority. Eating chilaquiles and sushi. Finding strawberries and chocolate. Remembering what it was like to be 5 years old in an underwater kingdom. Laughing and crying and crying from laughing.
And always, always collecting light.
Thank you, Ashley, for being the best kind of friend the lady on this side of the Pacific ever imagined having. xoxox
In honor of my birthday – today – I had a blog post all planned out in my head. I was going to scan photos I’d found while looking through photobooks with Ashley on her first day in town, and write about discovering something that must have been there all along.
And then I forgot the photos when we left Orange County.
Ah well. Typical Leah. Some things never change, no matter how much older I get. I’ll scan them in one day, and I’ll write about all that some time. But in a way I’m glad I forgot, because it gives me the opportunity to write about something else that means even more to me.
As a little girl, long before I ever imagined picking up a camera, I used to look through a book. The book had a profound impact on me in so many ways. It was called The Family of Man and was the book version of the exhibition curated by Edward Steichen. The exhibition was first shown in 1955, which gives you an idea of the age of the photos; most of them were taken at least two decades before I was born. Yet there they were, these people, these men and women and children, from around the world, scattered across the pages, loving and fighting and eating and sleeping and working and living and being. They became a part of me, not just as images, but as the exhibition intended them to be: as a world of different people who are all at heart part of one family.
If you follow me on flickr, and most of you who read this blog do, you know I take great inspiration from the people in my life. Whether or not they are actually in my life, they are to me a part of it, inspiring and teaching and pushing me on. More often than not I still feel like the little girl reading The Family of Man: agog at the world and all it has to offer, amazed at the possibilities and astonished that such things are possible, impatient to learn everything there is. I wonder if I’ll ever outgrow the feeling of wonder at the world, of being wide-open to experience, of being ridiculous and silly and terrified and unafraid, of reaching out to those people in that family of man.
Sometimes the inspiration is too much. When you look out at that many people, it’s not simply that all the eyes are staring back. Gazing into all those eyes means that many windows into that many souls.
Or, as the case may be, reflecting as windows often do back onto ourselves.
I have done a lot of reflecting on the self this past year. In this next year, I am sure that will continue, but I am ready as well to reflect out: I want to contribute to the family. With my work. Maybe make a multitude.
And make images that hopefully help someone stop and feel the way I did, all those years ago. To see the people I see and to want to be a part of this great family of ours.
This past weekend, I had a series of wholly unexpected adventures. I can’t remember the last time I felt so inspired, or wanted so much for a weekend never to end.
Here is a secret: You can find magic where you least expect it. You don’t have to go very far, to an exotic land and see people who speak another language. You can go to a town you thought was boring or pointless, a way-station to a bigger city. A regular burgh full of people who are living day by day, and their stores and their lives and their stories.
Really, you can find magic anywhere. Sometimes you can find so much, in fact, that it makes your heart explode a little.
