116//365

once

we took the back roads home from savannah, cut through small georgia towns along the way. spotted an old roadside motel and pulled over. as I got out of the car, I noticed a man in army fatigues, sitting in a plastic lawn chair the color of christmas trees. I could feel him watch me as I positioned my camera, knew the questions were next. what are you doin, girl? welp, I told him. I'm taking a picture of this old motel sign. I do that sometimes. I smiled and turned away then, looked through the viewfinder at the old sign. better do it quick, he said. before they tear this down. they wanna change everything about the south. 

here's hoping, I thought, as I got back in the car. here's hoping we change as much as we can. because I knew he wasn't really talking about the sign.

112//365

once

I took a walk down edgewood avenue, past familiar bus stops and bars, past new murals and the remains of old ones. I stopped to make small talk with the owner of a barbershop, who invited me inside for a few minutes. the soft metallic hum of the clippers, the occasional sound of the broom, layers of conversation. if I could have tucked myself into a corner there for the rest of the afternoon, I would have. 

111//365

once

I watched a painter work in new orleans, near the iron fence that encloses jackson square. she used a cardboard palette to mix her paints-- greens, red and yellows like fresh rainbow chard, the sounds of beyonce coming from what I could only assume was a phone. her voice muffled, as if she were singing through a sock. across the way, amber light on buildings, a scene that begged to be painted.

106//365

once

we spent an afternoon on the humid streets of downtown athens, georgia. flipped through records at wuxtry, books at avid. checked to see what was playing at the old movie theatre. chased ezra's neon yellow rubber ball as it pinged across a busy street. meandered down narrow brick-paved alleyways into vintage shops stacked floor to ceiling with musty goods. considered a quick lunch at waffle house but remembered the time ward found a spoon in the bathroom there and decided against it. landed instead at the burger place around the corner and as we sat out on the patio at the table with the poppy red oilcloth covering and waited for our food, decided athens might just be the perfect place for us to retire.

96//365

once

I peered inside the windows of the saint roch chapel in new orleans and found a small, soft chorus of prosthetic limbs. the insides of another southern poem, a hundred different stories (at least), dangling.

90//365

once

I hung out the car window as we drove by the old kodak building downtown atlanta on ponce and prayed it would not be devoured by the gentrifiers.

87//365

once

I left my family in a comic book store in downtown savannah, georgia. slipped out the front door and walked towards oglethorpe square, in search of painted doors and scrolling ironwork. wandered down an alleyway and found rothko instead.

82//365

once

I spent a good chunk of time poring over howard finster's polaroids at paradise garden, his hand-writing in pencil on each and every one. banjos and wooden angels and abraham lincoln and students painting, colorado fields as seen from the window of an airplane-- or 'plain', as howard wrote it.

something about howard finster with a polaroid camera made me smile.

81//365

once

in an industrial park just north of downtown chattanooga, I listened to a skater tell stories about rings. 

80//365

once

we celebrated a wedding anniversary with an unexpected drive through the back roads of south carolina and a brown paper bag filled with hot boiled peanuts.

75//365

once

while I was on the road to south georgia, I passed a flower shop that looked as if it had been devoured from the inside out. or, outside in. 

60//365

once

we stood beneath the great angel oak in john's island, south carolina. ran our hands gently over ancient mammoth limbs that seemed to wind and curve outwards instead of upwards, as if pleading with something wholly unknown. I was not prepared for the way this made me feel.

55//365

once

I made a portrait of a young man who wore his hair like a radiant, solar crown. like a magnificent amber cloud.

53//365

once

we passed an old drive-in movie theatre on our way to a fleamarket in texas. my cousin, who'd driven this way countless times, flew past it with nary a mention. I, on the other hand, thought my eyes might pop out of my head. so beautiful my heart beat a little faster at the sight of it, so perfect it did not seem real. all I had time to do in the moment was point and gasp.

on the way back, I asked if we could stop. we were in a bit of a hurry but my cousin indulged me, pulled the car into what was left of the entrance. as I got out to take a closer look she mentioned she'd stopped once before for a yard sale and had talked with the owners, actually, who lived in the little brick house right next to the drive-in. as it turned out, it had been in their family for decades. they'd tried to keep the starlight alive as long as they could, they really tried, but finally had to let it go.

so, there it sits. a golden beacon of nostalgia set along a mostly forgettable stretch of texas highway. an american poem. the beginning of a song, maybe, or the end of one.

48//365

once

our car broke down in tennessee. somewhere between nashville and chattanooga around midnight. just whimpered along the shoulder of the highway and sputtered to a stop. I swore the night never felt so deep and dark and ominous than in that particular moment. isn't that always the way? flying down the highway in the middle of the night feels like magic until your car dies and you suddenly come so close to the unknown you can practically feel it slide across your skin. 

a fireworks store as big as a warehouse with monster floodlights to match but of course, it was closed. in a pre-cell phone era, there was nothing else to do but walk. towards an exit we thought we remembered passing a few miles back, along the soft, narrow shoulder of a major highway in the middle of what will always be remembered as the most lightless night. 

three miles felt like three hundred years. every semi passed with a violence that nearly lifted me off my feet and for an hour we walked like this, wincing at every passing truck and shuffling and swearing and praying until we reached the exit and finally, our salvation: the old roy acuff country inn. 

I almost cried when I saw that giant neon cowboy boot.

45//365

once

while wandering the streets of savannah on a tuesday afternoon, I saw a girl wearing floor-length prom gown the color of apricots, a man scream-singing rock the casbah out the window of a beat-up datsun and a woman in a starched calico bonnet so enormous it completely obscured her face. 

43//365

once

I found myself between buddha and the man in a louisiana junk shop.

38//365

once

I spent the night at howard finster's paradise garden. 

the little rental cottage across the street granted us full twenty-four hour access to the garden so of course we wandered the grounds during magic hour and then during blue hour and then late at night, simply because we could. twin tabby cats slipped in and out of shadows as we walked, string lights hung from the eaves like jewelry but the real prize was the garden by moonlight.

all we could see, could not see, maybe did not want to see, is what I woke up thinking about the next morning. 

30//365

once

I took the kids to an orchard to pick peaches a couple hours outside the city. we filled our baskets in no time but kept working our way deeper and deeper into that fragrant thicket of fruit, as if maybe there was something else waiting for us in what felt like the very center of the peach universe. 

27//365

once

I spent a few days in an old victorian house in new orleans where I did not want for hot sauce.