walk through wonderland
last year grace and i lived in mexico. i was all jumbled up about what it meant to get my phd, what it meant to be human, what it meant to research other people’s lives… you get the picture. part of me thought i would never come back to the US, for obvious reasons if you know anything about my political leanings, and part of me knew that i would return to where i was from, because phenomenon aside, i’m a rootsy kind of girl. the point i’m getting at here is that while i was living in mexico i didn’t want to be a researcher, or a tourist, or anything but a human alive in a place experiencing everything with all of my senses open and all of my pores absorbing the world, so i deliberately adopted a no-camera perspective and my attitude was that i wouldn’t walk around my daily life anywhere else taking pictures of everything, so why there? at the time it served me because i was able to capture my emotion on paper and look at things so long and hard that they are permanently seared into my memory through no other lens but my own, but now, almost a year later, i would like to see some photos. figures, eh? but guess what? my good friend, a wonderful woman i met while living in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca (i recommend you buying a ticket and heading down to the beach immediately if you’ve never been) just so happens to have a very amazing set of pictures from that time, some of grace that are priceless to me and have me tearing up at the site of the little beach bum all tan with blonde streaks in her dark hair wearing seashells and a bikini and smiling in the sun. thank you for that gift, my friend, it was a walk through wonderland.
and i am shifting my attitude about photos altogether. even last night at the bowling alley i felt it was an imposition for david to take photos of us bowling and having fun. i had to get into my head and have the familiar inner dialogue about it for several minutes before i just let it go. now i am glad he took the pictures, and glad i didn’t say anything out loud, because we can remember that way, too. i still need to explore this piece a little more, i believe, before i can fully understand the inner tension i have with the camera and capturing the everyday. what is it, exactly - is it tied to this idea that i must produce for someone other than myself in order to feel legitimate? wait, that’s a whole ‘nother’ issue that i can delve into another day. exploration continues.
i was wide awake again at 4 am, eyes popped open and my mind was racing instantly about the state and condition of the world and my place in it. i think my brain must process this stuff all night long and then i am forced to consider the questions and frustrations and ideas that were percolating when my mind pushes my body alive again every morning, way too early, while i’m trying to push thoughts aside and let my weary bones rest. this residual existential dilemma stuff is not an intentional space where i wish to lay my mundane normality yet i can not seem to shake the memory of this being the very place i have journeyed for so long. so long. i have learned so many ways of being and understanding by wandering the planet as an existential monster, but i might just want to lay that backpack down for a time while i breathe and work and play and be a mommy and a lover and a friend. i desire to stay present and connected. as the birds are finally waking, filling my backyard with song, and the sun begins to peek above the mountains, these are my intentions. i am connected. i have an appointment with my good friend at Garden-Hers farm at 8 and i will purchase her organic seedlings, every variety of tomato i want, bell pepper, chile, eggplant, herbs, everything that grows so well in our desert, and i will sit in the dirt and begin my garden anew. i am looking forward to today.
