6//365

once

while on the road to florida, we stopped to pick up a few things. sunscreen, bubbles, cheetos. while we were shopping, ezra found a shell pink shirt with a pale yellow sun on the front. worlds different than any article of clothing he'd ever picked out for himself before. 

this will be my summer shirt, he said.  
this will be the beginning of my new look.

I threw it in the cart. wanted to smile but didn't. he put it on as soon as we got back to the hotel, barely took it off all summer long. the slightest pivot, the smallest beginning. 

351/365

things I thought about as the tow truck pulled our totaled car away forever this past week:

I thought about just how much life that car had seen

how it had faithfully carried us up and down so many favorite portland and atlanta streets

and back and forth to our beloved oregon coast, our manzanita, our shorty's, and then up and down stretches of the 101 too many times to count

and down I-5 to friends in san francisco and unexpected adventures in northern california along the way

and then how many times we packed it with pillows and blankets and popcorn and candy to take the kids to the drive-in, both the newberg 99w in oregon and the old starlight here in atlanta

I thought about the last day we drove it in portland, down 64th avenue one last time, the street where we lived for seven years, and along the sacramento ridge, past the view of mount hood, and down sandy boulevard across the burnside bridge, past the old portland sign one last time, and to powells books and the photobooth at the ace one last time, and then across all the bridges we loved-- the broadway, the fremont, st. johns, the hawthorne one last time before we finally pulled out of the city and watched portland grow smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror

I thought about how it carried us all the way across the country, through nine different states, from portland, oregon back home to atlanta, georgia

how we drove it to the the top of snowy crater lake that june in 2014, and through the winding roads of the redwood forest, down the miraculous avenue of the giants and slowly through every drive-through tree we could find

and how we drove it across the golden gate bridge one last time, and down 24th and valencia streets in the mission and up the narrow streets of chinatown

and then through palm springs, out to the edge of town where we parked it between the windmills and the train tracks and went treasure hunting

and then past the salton sea to salvation mountain, where the dashboard temps read 120, where it was so hot we could only stand to be outside the car for five minutes at a time 

and then to the grand canyon at magic hour, and through the legendary monument valley and the four corners, and down a street in holbrook, arizona actually named bucket of blood, and all along historic route 66, where we stopped a kajillion times to take pictures of old motels

I thought about how we built a tower of coolers and books between the kids on the trip so they wouldn't fight

I thought about how we pulled the car over the minute we finally crossed the georgia state line and took photographs of the kids jumping up and down in front of the state sign

I thought about how this car carried ward and I down to new orleans to celebrate our twentieth wedding anniversary and then, miraculously, back down again to celebrate our twenty-fifth

and how we drove it down to savannah, georgia so many times, how it felt to be back beneath all that hanging spanish moss, and out to tybee island, where ward and I took our very first road trip back in 1990

and down to florida five summers in a row, over the long bridge to sanibel island, where we often pulled over to watch fiery skies fade to pink

and to the north georgia mountains to see the leaves change, to see the falls, to bring home pumpkins to carve

I thought about how we have filled it and stuffed it with suitcases and pool floats backpacks and art supplies and my very favorite beach blanket and camping chairs and picnic baskets and thrift hauls and furniture salvaged from the side of the road and buckets of fresh-picked strawberries and blackberries and baskets of peaches and how many christmas trees we've lovingly selected and then crossed our fingers and strapped to the top of it

I thought about how many times we've hauled the kids back and forth to school in it, how many conversations we've had about classes and too much homework and good teachers and bad teachers and good test grades and bad test grades and shenanigans and projects and friends and enemies and bad days and good days 

I thought about the time I picked ava up from prom, how she had such a horrible time she burst into tears the minute she opened the car door, how my heart broke while she cried all the way home and poured her story out between sobs

I thought about the time I took her to the emergency room at 5:30 in the morning, how I gripped the steering wheel and prayed so hard for everything to be okay

I thought about how it was the very first car ava learned to drive, and how ezra will learn in a completely different, yet unknown, family car

I thought about how it held remnants of spilled ice cream cones and spilled coffee and cookie crumbs and collected rocks and bits and pieces of other collected things and loose change and candy wrappers and forgotten seashells and ketchup packets and bobby pins and travel games and old receipts and broken umbrellas and flashlights that still need batteries and at least a dozen stickers from trips to the high museum of art and sand, no matter how many times we cleaned it out, sand

and I thought about how many arguments it had seen, how many times I'd cried in it and laughed in it and sang really loud in it and softly to myself in it, and fell asleep on the way home in it and read books in it and got lost, got stuck in traffic in it, and how many times I'd crammed my feet up on its dash, how many times I told ward he was driving too fast or that he'd taken the wrong way and how many times we kissed in it, pulled over for a mcdonalds coke in it or for shakes and tater tots from sonic or how many times we pulled over for something that looked interesting, or how many times I made ward pull over so I could cut some wildflowers growing alongside the highway, how many times I'd taken photographs of the sunset in my rearview mirror, or of myself in the rearview mirror, how many times we'd rolled the windows down to let our hands ride the wind while we drove to wherever it was we were going

I mean, I know. it's just a car. but, still. my heart seized up a little. 

329/365

things I remember about the day I made this polaroid:

drove up to the top of black rock mountain at sunset
twas cold and windy 
stood at the edge, marveled 
for a second, we were quiet
ezra, especially

(november 21, 2017)

(friday's polaroid-- the last poalroid-- for the last day of fall polaroid week)

193/365

things I genuinely love about ezra:

appreciates a perfectly ripe avocado as much as a fresh bag of hot chili pepper takis
toggles between intense bursts of video game-playing and book-reading with enviable ease 
gets as excited as I do about lightning bugs *and* lightning whelks
gets why bottle rocket is clearly wes anderson's best film and can now insert the lil banana quote into any given conversation
keeps jars of old skeleton keys and vintage watch parts and various found objects in his room
never met a toddler (or cat) who did not absolutely love him
actually reads books I recommend (and then lets me tell him why they're important)
knows when to put the controller down and get on his bike and ride
often carries a small black backpack he refers to as his 'adventure sack'

has pretty exceptional observational skills

sincerely appreciates a good road trip
is diligently working on folding a thousand paper cranes
shares his favorite songs with me at the end of long days when I just can't with people and the world anymore
makes a mean turkey avocado sandwich
will watch episodes of seinfeld and the office and parks and rec over and over and over again with me
takes the art he makes seriously
once declined an opportunity visit the city where he grew up (portland) because he wanted to 'remember it the way it was'
brings me things like tiny flowers and paint palettes from art class
has a writer in him fighting to get out
has recently taken up whittling
is not stingy with hugs

(happy 15th birthday to my favorite boy in the world and someday when you are reading through my old blog posts, I hope you find this and I hope it brings you so much joy)

40/365

things I want to remember about today:

the sun like honey in our bedroom this morning
the way it felt to sit and talk and laugh and drink coffee with my friend
the color of the beets in my bowl at lunch
blood oranges in my grocery cart (thus, a little surge of joy)
paper whites in my grocery cart (thus, a little surge of hope)
ezra in the car after school, giddy, talking about a poem he wrote
ava in the kitchen with me tonight, cooking onions and garlic and tomatoes in olive oil
ezra just now, standing in the doorway of my bedroom, still talking about his poem, still

well, I asked

me, after dinner: "so, what should I write about tonight?"

ava: "slurpees."

ezra: "define slurpees."

ward: "love. you should write about love."

ward: "talk about trump. you love trump."

ezra: "you should also probably write about how I'm almost done folding all these paper cranes."

ava: "polygamy."

ward: "make one of your lists. you should make a list of um, movies."

ava: "toilets. public toilets."

ladies and gentlemen, this be my monday night. 

hashtag halloween

we are barely hanging onto things around here. and by things, I mean childhood holiday traditions and by we, I mean me. for her last official year as trick-or-treater, ava went old school slash classic halloween witch (though I believe in my heart of hearts she was really just channeling lydia).  alternately, ezra ditched trick-or-treating altogether. I pretended not to care. for the record, I am no good at pretending not to care.

I could not even get him to carve the small pumpkin he'd picked out at the farm weeks ago. though he did at least manage to scrape his pocket knife across the bottom of it and call it a mouth. since the thing already had two rotten spots on it that looked like eyes, it was promptly pronounced a carved jack 'o' lantern. okay. he will never admit it but he loved that rotten little pumpkin thing. the more it rotted, the more he loved it. and so did I. 

halloween 2017, I'll take it. melancholy and all. last year's halloween was an absolute disaster. this year, we lowered our expectations, kept to ourselves. and, it worked. this year, we celebrated what felt like the last of the last. who knows what next year holds? wait, don't answer that. 

(halloweens past: 2016//2015//2014//2013//2011//2010//2009//2005)

archaeology

portland, oregon, november 2008. 

we manage hundreds of photographs now, at any given moment, we deal in volume. which means that sometimes photographs get lost. and stay lost until we go digging.

summer twenty seventeen (three)

favorite summer photographs, part three, fini. part one here, part two here and now, in retrospect, I am certain I underestimated summer twenty seventeen.

summer twenty seventeen (two)

favorite summer photographs, part two. part one here, part three on deck.

it's entirely possible I underestimated summer twenty seventeen. 

summer twenty seventeen (one)

in between my inexplicable (or, in some cases, absolutely explicable) summer melancholy, there were good times. really, really good times.

this is part one of a three-parter, folks. a three-part love letter in favorite photographs, dedicated to all the times this summer I managed to sidestep an electric undercurrent of anxiety and find my way through to the good times.