dishes

showing up here because I said I would, though it feels disingenuous to talk about anything other than how crazy america feels right now. about how lost and broken and divided we are.

but the days are days, what else can they be? the making of school lunches, the drinking of coffee, the folding of laundry, the editing of photographs, the hustling for work, the running of errands, the texting of messages, the paying of bills, the reading of books, the watching of netflix, the making of dinner, the washing of dishes, the planning of revolutions. 

meanwhile, the edges of america continue to unravel. to be clear, I am not without hope. I'm just standing at the kitchen sink, washing the dishes. talking to God, planning my next move. 

august's sixty seconds

ava turned sixteen this summer, friends. sixteen. momentous occasions such as this call for extraordinary adventures so we hopped a train to new york for her first trip to one of my favorite cities in the world.

this here is the little film I made of it for the sixty second photograph project. full disclosure: it was not easy to remember to stop and shoot bits and pieces of footage of our time together. in fact, it really slowed us down. but, wow. I'm so glad I made myself stop, made myself stop and shoot the bits and pieces. because I know I'll treasure this little film forever. forever and ever and ever.

and I think ava will too.

(music by caribou and special thanks to my good friend jen lee for letting us crash on the floor of her sweet brooklyn flat)

things that got me through the week

1. open windows

2. phone calls from friends

3. tribe's new album

4. clean sheets

5. moonlight

to climb inside

here are a couple of photographs I'd like to climb inside and live for a little while. just for a little while.

rhymes with fight

they're still there, these words. scribbled in chalk in the middle of a january night on the concrete support beams of a bleak suburban underpass. ten months later, who knew they'd still be there? that they wouldn't have been scrubbed off or painted over? or that sidewalk chalk could even last this long?

initially, I left them there because I thought, well, you never know. you never know who might need to read them. as it turns out, it was me. I needed them. I needed them yesterday and I needed them today and I will need them for the next four years and I will probably need them everyday until the end of times, I think.

there's a lot of hate in this country right now, we are swimming in darkness here. not that it's anything new-- this hate is decades, centuries old. but we reached sickening new heights with it tuesday night when half of america chose to elect who they did. which means we've got a world of work to do, folks. and it's gonna take a crap load of light.

a little more sidewalk chalk couldn't hurt either.

can't

just can't.

no matter what happens

here's what I will always have:

the memory of walking into a small suburban church on a buttery sunny tuesday afternoon. the memory of casting my vote against donald trump. friends, it felt so good. so good I wanted to do it twice. so good I wanted to cry. first time in weeks, maybe months, it felt like I had any power at all.

so, no matter what happens, I will always have this. the most hateful man to ever run for president will never, ever be able to take this away from me. no matter what.

this is the power of the vote, win or lose. 

p.s. for the record, I'm hoping we'll make history tonight. I'm hoping we'll elect our first female president. I'm hoping for a lot of things. 

number five

number five off the list: stand in a field of sunflowers.

and I hoped it might happen somewhere like the south of france but okay, north georgia. north georgia will do just fine.

R.I.P.

we lose that extra hour of light with the time change and friends, I mourn it like a death.

I want to hold a small, respectable ceremony for it, say a few kind words about it, about how much I loved it, how sorely it will be missed, how we must all be brave in the face of such great loss and find a way to get on with our lives without it.

kidding. sort of.

please, feel free to leave your condolences in the comment section below. in lieu of flowers, please send candles.

currently

reading: interview with the vampire

listening: moses sumney, all the live long day

watching: movie trailers, all the live long day

obsessing: old school photo albums, southern glossary, the best blood orange lip balm there ever was and adam driver (natch)


you?

I want to share this with you

because it does something to me. because I keep coming back to it, again and again. because do people share poems anymore? because it's important. 

a small needful fact

is that eric garner worked

for some time for parks and rec.

horticultural department, which means,

perhaps, that with his very large hands,

perhaps, in all likelihood,

he put gently into the earth

some plants which, most likely,

some of them, in all likelihood,

continue to grow, continue

to do what such plants do, like house

and feed small and necessary creatures,

like being pleasant to touch and smell,

like converting sunlight

into food, like making it easier

for us to breathe.

ross gay

God bless you, ross gay.

july's sixty seconds

I've made three little films for the sixty second photograph since I've been gone here, three I haven't yet shared. july already seems like something that happened a lifetime ago. scouring the waters for shells down in southern florida already seems like something I did in a lovely, fevered dream.

I'm a little crazy for seashells. actually, I'm a lot crazy for seashells and would happily spend all of my days stooped over shallow ocean waters, looking for those sweet little guys. they make me happy. they really, really do.

polaroid week!

(day one)


(day two)


(day three)


(day four)


(day five)


(day six)

polaroid week was a couple of weeks ago and I just love how everything sort of stops for a sliver of time, for a sliver of people (for instant photography-loving people). admittedly, I hoard all my best polaroids, save them all up for the two different weeks out of the year that polaroid week happens. I sort of love hoarding them. I don't know why.

the entire week's offerings are here and a few of my favorites are here and golly, I was honored to be included in this best-of list over on pryme.

day two, guys. I made it to day two of nablopomo. small victories.

here I am

I'm here, I'm here, I'm here. I'm still here.

been silent for months but only because I've been saving it all up for nablopomo, aka national blog posting month whereupon I post one thing every day during the month of november.

okay, sorry. that's a lie. I haven't really been saving it up. I've just been stuck, I guess. writing things in my head, slowly making my way back here. I don't even know what this space is to me anymore but I keep coming back and that means something. that's got to mean something.

so, nablopomo after nearly four months of nothing? I say yeah.

I SAY HECK YEAH.

on silence and rotten teeth

we spent last week in southern florida. floated on our backs in the ocean, dug our feet deep in the sand, scoured the beach for shells, lined them all up on the floor of the porch each night. we stayed up late, watched a hundred movies, slept in most mornings, ate food that was not good for us. hamburgers, ice cream, slurpees from 7-eleven. we unplugged from the world, mostly, plunged ourselves deep into vacation mode. vacation mode: that magical, guiltless place. the one where you're actually allowed to sleep in, eat food that is probably not good for you, float on your back in the ocean for inordinate amounts of time, collect too many seashells.

that's where we were when alton sterling was killed. when philando castile's life was taken from him. when five dallas police officers were shot. we didn't know it when it happened, we were in another world. when I finally heard the news, I tried hard to put it out my mind lest the remains of my vacation bubble burst into a million tiny pieces. I didn't want to think about it, didn't want to believe what I already knew to be true. that these unthinkable, unspeakable deaths continue to happen in our country over and over and over again. in this, the year 2016. as I stood in the gulf waters one last time I thought, alton sterling will never stand in the ocean like this. philando castile will never float on his back in blue waters and stare up into a wide open sky.

on the second day of vacation, my tooth began to hurt. which wasn't a surprise, really, given a small piece of it had broken off a month earlier. I've been putting off going to the dentist for years. as the pain continued throughout the week, I tried to mask it with maximum doses of acetaminophen and ibuprofen but deep down, I knew. it wasn't going to get better. I could mask the pain a dozen different ways, take enough to get me through vacation but what was left of the tooth would continue to rot. and if I continued to pretend it wasn't there, it would surely become a bigger problem. unless, of course, I did something about it.

and this is where we are in this country, folks. this is where we've been for years. decades, centuries. the systemic racism that plagues this country is a stinking, rotting tooth. it's more than a tooth, it's a mouthful. and it will not change until everyone, and when I say everyone, I mean every white person, acknowledges this. even then, it's not enough just to say the tooth is rotten, actions need to be taken or things will never, ever change. there is no room for silence, friends. no room for apathy.

voices need to be used. hands, talents, faith, money, whatever we have to give. white folks, we need to use our privilege. talk to our families, our friends, our kids. for the love of God, we need to talk to our kids. we need to talk about it when it's uncomfortable, when it's awkward, when it's inconvenient. and we need to keep talking. more importantly, we need to back the talking with doing.

there is not one struggle in this country right now more important than this. not one. if, like me, you don't know where to start, aren't exactly sure how to move beyond words into genuine action, start by reading this.

black lives matter.
black lives matter.
black lives matter.