12//365

once

I stopped to make a photograph of this liquor store because in that moment, it looked exactly like how I felt.

11//365

once

I followed a man down the street because he was wearing an old band uniform.

10//365

once

I took the train home from new orleans and found myself riding past old cemeteries at sunrise. 

which, of course, felt like the soft insides of a southern poem. 

9//365

once

ava bought a used book at the tea house and when she opened it, found a small photobooth frame wedged deep between the yellowed pages. pictured in the frame was a youngish man with longish hair. nineteen seventy something, I am sure of it.

it was as good as finding money. and it felt a little bit like maybe we'd completed some sort mysterious lost and found circuit-- what, with the lost chinatown polaroid and all. 

as if balance, somehow, had been restored. 

8//365

once

in columbus, georgia, I found myself on a path that bordered the chattahoochee river. as I stood and looked out over the water, I heard a soft whizzing sound overhead. I looked up, saw a pair of dangling legs and realized they belonged to a man ziplining over the river from the state of alabama over to where I stood in the state of georgia. 

there were others, too. in harnesses and hats, woohooing their way back and forth, from alabama to georgia, georgia to alabama. bodies in the sky on a saturday afternoon, attempting flight.

as we are all trying to do, I suppose, in our own particular way. 

7//365

once

I met a couple just trying to make ends meet.  

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. 

5//365

once

while we were driving back from the georgia coast, I made ward pull over for peaches. even though we didn't believe there would be peaches, that if they'd had any, they wouldn't be any good, since peaches wouldn't be in season for at least another three or four months.

this is the power of the hand-painted sign.

4//365

once

I lost a polaroid portrait of ava in chinatown, somewhere between pell and mott street, I think. She'd stood at the mouth of doyers while sunlight sliced through buildings behind her, turned to look at me and, I made the picture. and then let out a long, slow breath like I do when I think something might be good.

I dumped my bags upside down that night, I couldn't believe it was gone. I have never lost a polaroid, never. ever. I wonder if someone stopped to pick it up. if they took it home, tacked it up on the wall. if they make up stories about it. I wonder if it'll eventually end up at the fleamarket in a box with all the other found photographs. 

I wonder if I remember her more vividly in that moment precisely because I lost the polaroid. 

these are all things I wonder.

3//365

once

while I was at the laundromat, I was approached by an older man. your clothes will dry faster if you put smaller amounts into multiple dryers, he said. I knew this already but smiled, said thank you. 

twenty minutes later we stood at neighboring formica tables, folding towels, stacking them in small, soft towers. he began, in earnest, to talk about his family. about his daughter, his granddaughters. about divorce. about disney world. his sweatshirt was the color of eggs, faint plume of grease down the front. I have pictures, he said. and then packed a blue plastic basket with his folded laundry and promptly left. 

ten minutes later, he returned, thick stack of photos in hand. one hundred, maybe two hundred total. he saw me, his eyes lit up. 

what else could I do but look at every single one? 

2//365

once

I sat with two friends at a small white table at cafe du monde in new orleans. we drank cups of hot coffee with chicory and ate beignets until our fingers were sticky with sugar and evening light dimmed to blue. I noticed our server outside the cafe on a smoke break, perched on top of a cement street bollard. legs dangling, cigarette dangling. I wandered outside, asked her how long she'd been working. too long, she said and I nodded. I looked down, noticed her boots. pointed my camera at them and she smiled. 

powdered sugar, she said.
I can't get away from it. 
it's everywhere. 
everywhere.

1//365

once

I spent an entire saturday morning in bed reading once by wim wenders, a book that was given to me several years ago by my good friend jen, a book I have read many times. I wondered, could I write small stories like this every day for one year? share photographs and stories of places I have been, people I have been and/or known, things seen and/or felt, could I do this every day for one year?

yes, I thought maybe I could, maybe I should.

words

writing just to be writing on this, the last day of the year, the last day of the decade. I want words in this space even if I don't exactly know what I want them to be, even if I'm lost as to how to string them together. it's true, I want the cart before the horse. but the proverbial clock is ticking and I can no longer wait for the proverbial horse. words, words, words. good ones, hopeful ones, shiny ones, golden ones. words about twenty nineteen, words about the twenty teens, words that tell about the looking back, that sing the good in looking forward.

words, words, words. 

(until I find mine, happy new year)

happy merry

anyway, december

frankly, I'm a little lost without my daily lists. 

as if it were an exotic foreign country I visited. learned the language, found my way around, got comfortable, settled in. now I'm back home and don't know what to do with myself. am rattling off lists inside my head in every situation, there is no off switch. to be clear, I'm not  interested in an off switch, I just miss the daily funneling. the terrific focus that comes with project specificity, a clear beginning, middle and end. 

anyway, december. onwards and upwards we go.