hello november

hello nablopomo, hello national blog posting month. hello yearly ritual in which I try to post something everyday for one month. I do not usually succeed but I do love the trying.

list forty-three: small things

or, not so small things. getting me through:

1. leaves the color of butterscotch

2. trees that seem to glow

3. the constructing of halloween costumes

4. the holding of the sweetest of babies

5. home-cooked meals from the sweetest of friends

6. stevie wonder records on repeat

7. dark movie theatres

8. daily texts from my dad

9. time in the land of sunshine

10. unexpected packages from friends (filled with thoughtful things that make me cry)

11. rolls of bright-colored crepe paper

12. postcards in my mailbox nearly everyday

13. the shopping for outfits for middle school dances

14. the shooting of many, many polaroids

15. the riding of bikes down tree-lined streets

16. her sterling silver dogwood ring on my finger

17. the last of the pink cosmos

18. ezra's spectacular laugh

19. apple caramel anything

thank you

thank you for the kind words, friends. for all the comments you've left, the emails and texts and cards you've sent. thank you. 

I can think of no better way to repay your many kindnesses than to share a little bit of her with you here. a video tribute put together by me and my brother in those furiously blurry few days before we laid her to rest. a barrage of old photographs and old home movie footage but so much more. so, so much more. her life, her light. my beautiful, amazing mom.

this is a picture I did not take

friends, I lost my mom. a few weeks ago, I lost my best friend. and I know she has a brand new body now, I know she's free from all pain and suffering but I am heartbroken.

this is a picture I did not take:

of us gathered around her bed early, early morning. my dad, my two brothers, holding hands, holding her hands, telling her how much we loved her as she took her last breath.

of the way the light looked in her room that morning, the way it flung itself in slanted shapes across the wall opposite her bed.

of the way the sky turned pink the day we laid her to rest. spectacularly, gloriously pink for just a few short minutes, just before dark. indeed, pink was her color.

what's strange is the way the world just keeps spinning. how everyday is still everyday. kids still need to be fed, laundry still needs to be done, bills still need to be paid. I have jumped right back in because what else can I do? I will tell you, there are moments when the reality hits me and the weight of it nearly brings me to my knees. it's like no pain I have ever, ever known.

friends, I miss my mom.

downtown collected

when in doubt, downtown. downtown is my happy place, my go-to inspiration place. didn't realize just how much until I began to pull images from all the downtown walks I've taken over the last the six months. downtown, again and again.

there's a song, you know. not that you'll find me singing it. I have, however, been known to hum it.

this is what it is

"above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes." -henri cartier-bresson

last of the last

I'm not ready for fall. even though this has been the hardest summer of my life. I'm not ready for late evening light to end, for the cicadas to stop with their singing. not ready to give up popsicles that melt and drip down the side of your arm and flowers that grow waist high and wild with color. I am the girl who doesn't want the party to end. 

I'm not ready to face the changes that lay ahead. unthinkable, unspeakable changes. I want to turn and run in the opposite direction, run until I can't anymore, til my lungs catch fire and my legs buckle. I'm not ready to say goodbye.  

70 things in 2,669 days

(or, before I turn 49)

1. fill a room with balloons
2. swim in turquoise waters
3. shoot with the yashica
4. spend the night in a yurt
5. finish the patchwork wall
6. cross the canadian border
7. develop the box full of film
8. walk across seventy bridges
9. fly down seventy slides
10. label the backs of the polaroids
11. label the backs of the photobooth strips
12. own a pink ukelele (done)
13. learn to rewire a lamp
14. take the train down to los angeles (or, up to new york)
15. rifle through tables of junk at the world's largest fleamarket
16. wear the fellini dress
17. attend a photobooth convention
18. spend the night in a trailer
19. stand at the top of the falls
20. celebrate twenty years of marriage
21. bake a lemon meringue pie
22. visit that one mountain
23. decorate the old bike
24. send the thank you notes
25. finish the q&a book
26. learn more italian
27. pull off an elaborate april fools joke
28. make (and wear) a crown of daisies
29. write about the charm bracelets
30. plant the tulip bulbs
31. hang the souvenir plates
32. take ava and ezra to chicago
33. take ava and ezra to new york
34. archive the old family photographs
35. walk the east bank esplanade
36. roller skate with friends
37.
38. take one hundred dance classes
39. make one hundred paper flowers
40. visit the japanese baths
41. spend the night in the pink room
42. shoot polaroids in italy
43. shoot polaroids in france (done, done, done)
44. fill a book with collages
45. take a capoiera class
46. transform the garage
47.
48. visit the world famous giant camera
49. ride a bicycle made for two
50. hit the rose bowl fleamarket
51. finish construction of the site
52. trace the sicilian family line
53. spend the night in a treehouse
54. perfect the lemonade recipe
55. ride the santa cruz sky candy (done)
56. throw a backyard party
57.
58. write one sentence everyday for a year
59. have a show here in atlanta
60. resurrect the hammock
61. revisit the underwater camera
62. visit paradise gardens
63. develop the secret workshop
64. finish the book of polaroid portraits
65. make a little zine
66. get a little ink
67.
68. ride the rooftop ferris wheel
69. spend the night in a teepee
70. run willy nilly into the cold, cold ocean

(numbers 37, 47, 57 and 67 have intentionally been left blank and with good reason-- eight years is a long time) (left room for the unexpected)

these days

I have mostly been out in it. summer, that is. there was another train adventure, an unfortunate sunburn, a continued love affair with the city of san francisco, a gaggle of downtown fountains, the picking of wild blackberries, cosmos gone loco in the garden, a broken hammock, a spectacular fleamarket, an ocean of lemonade. additionally, the sun continues to shine, much to my disbelief. am left with nothing but my unadulterated love for it, my ridiculous plan to stuff drops and bits of it into mason jars to save for the long winter ahead.

twelve

well, twelve rolled around last week. twelve. and the day was met (head on, mind you) with donuts, balloons and downtown adventures. the maudlin me wants to get lost in talk about change. about long, spindly legs and bright eyes. about neon earrings and the sharing of shoes. about first dances, first loves, first everything. the maudlin me could go on for hours like this.

I so clearly remember twelve. plus thirteen, fourteen, fifteen and so on and so forth. but twelve. twelve is at the edge of so much. I know this now. I can see it and I can see her, perched right there at the edge. all I really can do is hold her hand (if she'll let me, less and less she lets me) and see her through to the other side of things. which is where? college? adulthood? wherever it is, all I can do is see her through. and I will tell her this when I can and she will roll her eyes sometimes and I'll wince but I'll tell her anyway. because she'll need to hear it. just like I needed to hear it, just like every girl needs to hear it.

oh, twelve.

last call

supper happy 2-for-1 sale over in ye olde etsy shop ends tonight at midnight PST, yo. or whatever your midnight is. just sayin.

instant illinois

so I decided to save that limited edition pack of nigo PX 70 color shade/color frame for something special. something special= summertime in illinois/summertime at my mom and dad's house/summertime with cousins. glad I waited. so so glad.

super happy time

unofficial biannual super happy 2-for-1 summer sale, peoples! buy one print, get one free. buy two, get two. buy three, get three and so on and so forth. aaaaand new prints have been added to le shoppe. you know, for fun. here's how it works: order the print (or prints) you'd like and then, in that handy dandy 'message to the seller' section, specify which print (or prints) you'd like as your freebies. special runs five days only-- today, july 23rd through saturday, july 28th. included in each package: a little extra special summer something. because it's summer. and I think you know how I feel about summer.

list forty-two: things I miss

surely I'm forgetting something:

1. rotary phones
2. lightning bugs
3. first kisses
4. polaroid film
5. new york city
6. dance class
7. my old body
8. sunshine, heat
9. the golden age of hip hop
10. the atlantic ocean
11. the kids as babies
12. fleamarkets with my mom
13. rides in the blue bambino with my dad
14. summers at the american dance festival
15. downtown cincinnati
16. back handsprings
17. slumber parties
18. snail mail
19. lauryn hill
20. fellini's pizza
21. camp with my cousin
22. weeks with great aunt louraine
23. RC cola in aluminum cups
24. tuesday nights at star bar
25. the backyard hammock
26. grandma corrona's bread
27. dancing with friends
28. atlanta, georgia
29. my childhood

the good and the alive

I stumbled onto a graffiti writer in an alleyway once. in that meaty, bright-colored san francisco other world they call the mission. I was careful not to disturb him but I wanted to watch. I wanted to shake all those paint cans, every last one. I wanted to ask questions, wanted to take a hundred photographs but I didn't. I barely managed the polaroid.

I think about that moment a lot. I look at the polaroid and remember everything. the smell of the paint, the sound of the aerosol, the quiet of the alleyway. it's important to me.

there are hard things in my life right now. there are great things too but I need to write about the hard things. I'm just not ready yet. seven years into this space and I'm still defining what it is to me, what it isn't. what I share, what I don't. what I'm saying is that it's easier to share polaroids of ice cream signs and graffiti writers right now. and birthday lists. am working on an epic birthday list because it makes me feel good and alive. and right now, I need the good and the alive.