blue cloud, San Francisco, Digital Rebel
“The moment you leap free of yourself,
the wine of the friend, in all its brilliance and dazzle,
is held out to you.”
– Jalal Al-Din Rumi
Monthly Archives: February 2004
clouds like Maxfield Parrish
February 28, 2004 – 8:38 am
Photo Friday – Industrial
February 27, 2004 – 8:31 am
hydrant, Mission St., Digital Rebel
Photo Friday’s theme this week is “Industrial”
clouds
February 25, 2004 – 6:48 pm
clouds, Digital Rebel
I was thinking of my dear friend’s one-year-old boy today and realizing that he is seeing everything in the world for the first time. The very first time!
Sometimes, while taking pictures I get the tiniest glimpse of what that wonder might be like, that feeling that you can’t believe something exists. It’s just too colorful and smells too delicious and is too impossibly beautiful. And instead of eating it, I grab for the shutter and snap, click, and share it with you.
Thank you for all of your comments about the new photos and new camera!
Good enough to eat
February 24, 2004 – 8:34 am
Sutro Baths, Ocean Beach, Digital Rebel
Matt told me a beautiful (true) story that has always stuck with me.
A little boy (maybe 5 years old) wrote to Maurice Sendak telling him how much he loved his books, his drawings, everything about him. As you might imagine, Sendak gets a lot of fan mail, but he was so moved by this one that he wrote the boy back and enclosed an original drawing, just for him.
The boy was so overjoyed when he received the drawing that he ate it, the entire thing, every last shred of pulp and ink.
His mom wrote back to the author, telling him the story. Sendak was thrilled, saying that that was the greatest compliment he had ever received.
If only I could tell god that I want to eat his ocean and warm glowy light.
beyotch
February 23, 2004 – 10:01 pm
Ocean Beach, San Francisco, Digital Rebel
This is San Francisco. This is Ocean Beach in San Francisco. This is me at Ocean Beach in San Francisco feeling so grateful for this day, for my friend’s car, for my hike along the hills, for the sun that rose and fell, for the salty air, and for my eyes that can see all this beauty.
“Look at your eyes. They are small, but they see enormous things.”
– Rumi
hands
February 21, 2004 – 3:29 pm
Michaels’ hands, Mission St., Digital Rebel
Today’s quote on my Zen calendar:
“Teach me, like you, to drink
creation whole
And casting out myself,
become a soul.”
– Richard Wilbur
The hills are alive, and so am I
February 21, 2004 – 3:29 pm
Michael LaFauge, Digital Rebel!
I spent the day walking around the city with my new beloved camera draped around my neck. I was a hunter today, a hunter for the beautiful and forgotten. The peeling paint, the cool juxtapositions of color, the graffiti on the cement under your feet that says, “How alive are you willing to be?” with a ballerina spray-painted next to it.
Michael was playing a song from The Sound of Music when I walked past. “The hills are alive with the sound of…” then he grinned at me, “Oh, you have a camera.”
I promised him copies of the photos which I am very excited about. He doesn’t have an address so I will have to go hunting again, this time for the pied piper.
another rainbow?
February 20, 2004 – 5:50 pm
the rainbow before the storm, Nikon Coolpix 4500
I know. I know. It’s hard to believe. There is another rainbow behind my house. It must be because I just bought my new camera and the battery is getting all juiced up!
Thank you for all of your words of encouragement. I swear if I could replace your voices with all of the evil voices in my head, I would be a lot happier. I think I’ll try that.
self-portrait
February 19, 2004 – 8:48 am
favorite skirt, Nikon Coolpix 4500
I am getting ready to make the leap. I am on the precipice. I hear the siren song of the digital SLR and it makes me weak. I want this camera so badly I itch in the soul of my being. I am my 10-year-old self and it is Christmas and I am longing for that bicycle, that doll, that magic set, that whatever-the-heck-it-was that I wanted so badly.
And then I remember that I am an adult and I can just stroll down to the camera shop and buy the darn thing. I don’t have to be good. I don’t have to put it on a list. I don’t have to wait until December. There is no naughty or nice.
And then I am afraid that I don’t deserve the thing, that I will choose the wrong one, that there will be a better one in less than a year, that it will break, that it will be dropped on the cement and it will break and it will be my fault.
I am regressing.
I want this camera, and I regress when I want something big and expensive.
I am going to buy this camera dammit.
bottles
February 17, 2004 – 11:32 am
blue bottles, Alemany Flea Market, Polaroid SX-70
I am reading a beautiful book called How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer. The stories are about some of the dark and mysterious parts of adolescence, the parts that we don’t necessarily have language for. They are visceral and haunting.
I also recently saw the movie Thirteen, a more literal, in your face look at these years. The movie begins with the two main characters high on canned air and slapping each other to bits. Matt and I have since made a vow never to have a teenage girl.
As my friend James Rocchi says about the characters in this movie, “They are like feral angels.”
