Born to

Have you heard of this?  “Flow”?  I didn’t know it had a name until I saw this documentary.  Flow is when you become so engrossed in process, whatever it may be, you loose your sense of self, becoming one with what you are doing.  Your world stops.  If you are an artist, painter, baker, runner, writer, musician, woodworker, gardener, or maker-of any sort, I bet you’ve felt this many times.

This past weekend, we took in the music of Waterdeep, a husband/wife music duo, in an old ark-like-barn, and I couldn’t get over their flow – deep and total loss.  Watching them felt true.  In many ways so true, it seemed the only real response was to cry.  Their flow blew me away.

The weekend was filled with many other things get lost in too, and these photos catch a few favorites.  But five days out, I keep coming back to Waterdeep’s melodies, pouring like rain, voices gleaning off the darkness.  And that blissful ability to loose ourselves in flow -- or watch someone else get lost in it -- feeling the glory of time melt to nothingness.

Film

Film.

Reminds me what it was like to make an image without listening.  Without blogs or Etsy or thousands of photography websites at my fingertips with eternal piles of imagery -- sun kissed children, lilac-ed brides. Paled skin.  Eyes all-a-perfectly shining.  A bevy of crisp, noiseless, digital sheen.  So many places to fall short.

I found these old photos and realized 10 years ago the only thing I listened to was my eye behind the camera.  And I didn’t even know I was listening, I just shot.  The film gave the magic of delay -- no looking or judging right away.   And when the film was developed, that was it.  No revising, never deleting.  It was what it was.  You would then share the photos in hand with family or friends, who stuck them in frames or pinned them to bulletin boards or the fridge.  So tactile.  Edges curled, they almost smelled like a book.  Glossy, light swelled, paper lined, words like “Kodak” or “Endurance” swimming in light blue script, corner to corner across the back.  These photos make me miss the way I could hold the image.  Tuck it into a pocket or bag.  Then find it months later like an old tissue or receipt.  Immediately brought back to the moment that it captured.

I just bought a new digital camera.  But I still miss film.

{Preview} Feeding the fill

I don’t know if it is the Italian or mother in me, but I am deeply satisfied cutting a ripe banana into small round slices to feed my children.  I guess it’s the innate drive to nourish.  I’d get that same feeling right before feeding my babies milk, sinking into bed, blurry-eyed, while all the day’s corners fell.  Every noise vanished.  Every void, filled. 

Watching Renee felt very, very close to how I feel when feeding my children. It was Mother's Day, and nineteen years since I'd seen her last.  There she was, gentle mother, bent over her bow-mouthed babies, swooping pails, collecting nostalgia.  In those hours, Renee filled the hole of curiosity I have for friends from my past -- as life has pushed on so selfishly, sometimes there’s barely time to look back.  And for those few hours, the nineteen years between then and now disappeared.  Because there she was, looking just like she did way-back-when, and in the moment, filling my cup.  

{Preview} Becoming four

I remember visiting my mother at the hospital when my brother was born.  I was five, hands clenching paper puppets.  I can still see my mother’s papery white gown trailing the floor, and feel the softness of her skin and copper hair.  I didn't know how much my world was changing.

At six weeks, Crosby is everything lovely and new:  lips tightly woven to a braided knot, and liquid eyes, black as berries.  So much newness to capture, yet it was Katama that had me on this day.  Black-lashed eyes, wide, and watching.  Brain working:  new, baby.  New, BABY.  Her fingers fluttered everywhere, and limbs were like fluid, spilling into each photo.  Trapezed between her mom and dad she sang Crosby the ABC’s, and wanted to drive small cars all over his body.  It’s a big job to make sense of such a small thing, not a cat, or a toy, but a brother.  She wears her love, full and bright, on her sleeve.

May

It’s been pouring.  Today we stepped outside to an orchestra of knotted buds unfurling, and mind-numbing, honey-thick, lilac in the air.  We swooped small inchworms, bent and neon, hanging helplessly from the sky. And stepped carefully over storybook-mushrooms, threaded together like buttons in the rain.  The kid’s feet found every puddle possible, and stood like two-legged-rabbits eating Greek oregano plucked straight from the ground.  This time of year, it seems if you stop for even a moment, you can watch life pushing through the mud, scrambling anxiously towards blue light.  Feel the earth hum.  When we were outside, the day was good.