350/365

things about the week:

we totaled our car
and I had coffee (and lunch and dinner) with my dad
and I photographed a beautiful old farmhouse built in 1870

(eventful, yes)

349/365

dream jobs, part two:

professional road trip planner
professional documentarian of the little things
official photographer of fleamarkets everywhere, all over the world

348/365

dream jobs, part one:

professional lamp whisperer
professional cross country train rider
official photographer of hanging laundry, everywhere, all over the world

347/365

some things seen at howard finster's paradise garden:

a tortoise shell
a prosthetic leg
bits of twists and twirls of ancient foil
at least a hundred drawer pulls
an old wooden basketball goal
two calico cats
a thousand tools
a thousand bottles
rusted chandeliers
a bouquet of cattails
a small bicycle basket
a few broken gumball machines
a large wooden starburst
pickle jars filled with plastic easter eggs
howard's brushes, crusted with paint
a dozen old lamps, hanging from the ceiling
a giant concrete boot
a hand-painted cadillac
a painting of willie nelson
a headless virgin mary

(it's a magical place)

346/365

spectacular falls I have taken:

age nine, in an old church choir loft during the christmas program (stepped on the front of my floor-length gingham dress and went down like a sack of potatoes in a sort of 'now you see her, now you don't' moment) (the entire congregation fought laughter and I mean, I get why but I fought real tears and delivered my lines like a true stoic and secretly despised them all for what clearly felt like betrayal)

age seventeen, on stage during a dress rehearsal of anything goes at taft theatre, downtown cincinnati (took the last high kick a smidge too high, swept my own feet out from underneath myself, went airborne for a fraction of a second before landing flat on my back with a sickening thud whilst the high kicking continued all around me) (wanted to die but popped right back up, as if internally operated by some magical animatronic machinery)

age forty-six, on a walkway crowded with tourists along the mississippi river in new orleans (stepped on the outer edge of the walkway, lost my footing while carrying a heavy backpack full of polaroid cameras and film, fought like a mother scratcher to regain balance so as not to damage said cameras which resulted in the lengthiest, most cinematic and dare I say most balletic of tumbles, really and truly, it felt like it was happening in super slow motion, like, I actually had time to think about things while I fell, A LOT of things, like, will I see this on youtube? are all my bones still intact? will I be able to walk away from this? also, why am I still falling? will I ever land? like, ever? or is this my life now?) (when I did finally land, a good fifteen feet from where I began, I prayed the earth might swallow me up but the choir loft spill at age nine had obviously prepared me and I played the whole thing off as if completely incapable of feeling and/or displaying any sort of human pain or emotion)

345/365

sounds I love, part one:

the screech of the subway
the zip-whir of the polaroid SX-70
ezra's laugh, like pancake syrup that comes out too fast

344/365

things I'm working on, part one:

a gaggle of zine ideas
walking daily as a self-prescribed anti-depressant
painting every mud beige wall in this rental home bright white
a regular street photography practice
a new series
using what I already have
wearing what I already have
sashiko mending another pair of jeans 
printing photographs
rebuilding my site
reopening my print shop
reorganizing a hundred million personal photographs
finding hidden treasures in the disaster that is the garage
getting out of my own head
getting out of my own way
pouring light out of myself instead of taking it all in
eight hours of sleep every night, every night
a handwritten version of this list project
reading instead
forgiveness 

343/365

small pleasures, part thirteen:

exact change
the sunday newspaper
your own bed at the end of a long day
hummingbird sightings
warm cider in sturdy mugs
collected leaves
completed lists

342/365

a few favorite adventures:

that time the kids and I traveled for two days through seven different states by train to visit my mom

that time my friends and I waded through cold, clear waters to get to the base of nambe falls in new mexico

that time we were passing through palm springs and decided, on a whim, to drive out to the edge of town and stand between the windmills and passing trains at sunset

341/365

things seen on my walk today:

a can of root beer, completely flattened
an empty pack of marlboro lights
leaves the color of amber brown bottles
two skinny faux wood china cabinets left out at the curb, laid flat, face up, as if they were sunbathing
an accidental arrangement of string and leaves and light so lovely I walked around it so as not to disturb it

340/365

three things I have intentionally given up: 

facebook
expectations
super late nights

(and I'm happier for it, I am so much happier)

339/365

words I had to look up in the dictionary in october:

agglutination
alimentation
salubrious
euphonic
pellucid

338/365

books I read in october:

the heart is a lonely hunter (carson mccullers)

electric arches (eve l. ewing)

the americans (robert frank)

337/365

things I want to remember about october:

ezra yelling from the top of the stairs: look at the peach-colored clouds, ma
the leaves that fell all around me while I rocked in the hammock
the discovery of those silvery bits on the back of the wings of that butterfly
a text from ava, seven inches of her hair cut off, her face luminous
the watching of old video footage of a trip to italy with ward in 1999
the watching of old video footage of ezra's very first birthday
the watching of old video footage of halloweens past
the milky white pumpkin with the tall, winding stem that called my name
the way I stood at the top of the falls after the crowd cleared
the way I breathed in that cold air for a few seconds, that sea of burnt yellow
david bowie on the turntable and chocolate chip cookies in the oven on a friday night
windows all the way open and fat stacks of pancakes on a saturday morning 
the first real backyard bonfire of the season
the yearly resurrection of mister bones and pumpkins drawn, cut and colored with toddler hands 
ava and cara and the impossible gaggle of rainbow balloons they tried to squeeze into the car
ezra's complex, ever-evolving lego handshake
that morning walk with ward in the fog 
silent book club in a dark pub on a monday night
the slow, miraculous transformation of the big tree on the corner
the moon from my window, like a silver coin, spied at 3:30 in the morning
the mysterious bronze urn left in a parking space at the church
the morning I stopped and pointed my SX-70 at the kitchen window
the morning I stood beneath the trees in our backyard, the ones just beginning to change
the way the sunlight deepened the reds of those leaves, like a volume dial turned all the way up
a facetime call with a good friend, like a shot in the arm, like a magic serum
the halloween package I put together for ava, with chocolate eyeballs and gummy worms and old halloween photographs
scary movies and air mattresses on living room floors on a saturday night
light pouring in through windows in an old church on a sunday morning
a loaf of pumpkin bread, warm and dense
the glow of two jack-o-lanterns
a handful of hopeful trick-or-treaters on a rainy halloween night
the missing of our beloved halloween queen
a new normal

336/365

on this first day of november:

leaves, noted
light, noted
resolve, softened