if asked, I would answer, this is what those four letters feel to me:
..that if you could let go, in a breath, a fraction of what you carried for your beloved- if you could put it into words...
the sea would carry its own shores, all that it shelters underneath and everything that came close to a home, just to run away with you.
when did we learn to estrange our insides, shutting them out so hard against iron clad doors, until we don't recognize who is in our home anymore?
There are things that never change
and we are not one of them my dear.
Trouble with our love is here.
The trouble with our love is around.
When you can't look me in the eye, and lie.
When you run so far away,
that you forget where to go back.
Now, you are what you never want to be,
go ahead, blame me.
There are things that never change.
Now we are two strangers with a past
and a future, that ain't gonna last
and that is a trouble with our love.
Last night we saw things like we never did,
we both went our way, and hid.
-Miguel Piñero
up close this matter was and will never be a blank slate. there is history here that's gone the distance. been scrubbed down by waters for your 'clean'. on it's back thrones were built so you can stand so tall and lean. it laid the ground beneath your feet. planted your fields of green. all of this so that in the end you keep it cloaked. compressed. hold it captive. and, brush it off from your eyes and ears. forgetting that raised in difference-indifference- we can't stitch with a single thread this cavernous seam. and we wonder why the universe looks at us undeserving of the skies and the heavens as they gleam. foolish to restrain ourselves from a path to the stars within reach.
never were you asked to make many disappear into one. but, to let it explode across an iridescent sky into all the ones it took to bring one here.
It's been longer than minute. This morning my little buddy woke me up and a song came on that made me just want to hang out in my bed to let it all sink in. It also reminded me how much I love the record "Faith".
I leave to Lima this weekend on a project near and dear to my heart- 5 years to the date of my last trip to Peru (and one of my all time favourites), funny how life works sometimes. I am excited to share some thoughts and reflections with you all soon from the road. In the meantime, smile at strangers, call your friends in England, reach out to that person you can't stop thinking about, let your skin breath and stay hydrated.
Besos y abrazos XO
I always believed that mourning begins at edge of introduction. Everything that's come from soil will eventually return to it. The minute we 'meet' the living we are preparing for their passing. Planting gardens and preserving memories. It might seem dark but it's the inevitable cycle of life. For all of us. The fleeting nature of the now.
Still even with this peace, it's difficult to express why the sudden physical leaving of a being from this planet, one I've never met or seen in the flesh, could leave me this gutted especially when there was so much beauty shared. Prince's music touched some of the most special memories of my childhood and beyond. His physical living was a comfort that those memories could maybe last forever and I could grow with them as the music does. I shed many tears yesterday. Not much fuel entered my body. It was the first time in a long time that it was deeply painful for me to listen to music. And while I don't seek the rhetoric that's probably going ensue in the coming days and months nor do I want to add to it- last night through my lens, the medium of expression that takes the wheel when I am frozen like this, the sky was clear in the deepest shade of blue, almost purple. The moon was almost full. I found the last of blossoms and sat under a branch to catch a cherry moon in April. Sending nothing but love and warmth to all my friends who are standing in the cold and feeling loss in anyway right now.
Happy Earth Day as well. ❤
Work always has it's perks. It's no secret that Midnight Oil's music is very special to me. I got a signed copy of "Big Blue Sky", Peter Garrett's memoir, a few weeks ago before my trip down under and I just finished reading it last night. It's one of the most well written memoirs I have read in a long time. Aside from his stories surrounding music in Australia, I was really moved by the brevity in his words, his relentless dedication to the environment as well as his activism for indigenous land rights, conservation, and prison reform. Growing up in Canada, so many of my friends and chosen family are Indigenous and I have seen first hand the palpable unrest and the systemic discrimination they face, so his passion for these issues is something that is particularly moving for me.
Politics is not something I "get" or am ever enthralled by, especially these days experiencing elections for the first time living in the U.S., let alone the capital. In the words of my dad who visited a few weeks ago: "The options can't be Bushs, Clintons and Trump, this country has played such a pivotal role in history and it needs fresh, invograted, motivated young and intelligent minds that are in tune with what's happening in the world today". I digress. Reading this book reminded me how it might be possible for even something like politics to be redefined- how inspiring it can be to have someone of that caliber of intelligence, depth and sense in one medium of expression use their voice as a platform in another like this. Definitely a cool moment in time. I'll also never stop holding out hope that I will get to see one of my favourite bands play live.
On a side note, I am about to head to the airport and I want to leave you with these photos from the Broad museum today- which was rad. California, until we meet again, I'll continue to experience you in my dreams.
When I am writing or developing photos in the dark room, I often try to switch up the music I have in the background - sometimes listening to stuff outside of my comfort zone or routine. I'll usually flag albums and bands I want to check out and will find the right moment to listen to those albums all the way through. It's a habit I have had for a long time. I think as much as growing up around in a household where six languages are floating around has expanded my vocabulary in ways I'm infinitely grateful for, it has also made me incredibly self aware of the constraints that can exist in language at a given moment in time. Like expressing love to me is very different in English than in Turkish, French, Italian or Arabic. Not just is the vocabulary weighted differently but the implications of words too. It's something that makes finding my expression enjoyable but also very torturous- because I tend to want to show all those colours and nuances everytime I speak.
In that vein, creativity, to me, is very much about learning to find your own voice and it's a process that can either expand you or contract you, depending on how open you are to the resources at your disposal. So given how much I usually rely on music, art and my surroundings for inspiration, challenging routine is very much a conscious attempt to melt across those "walls" and boundaries in the lexicon that exists in my periphery. For instance, when I know that a certain environment brings out specific emotions in me, like an e-detector, usually after I have written or developed my photos, I will set the work aside. Then when I am ready and open, I will go through the process from "scratch" after exposing myself to an environment on the "opposite" side of the scale. Then, I'll look at the work again and take it further.
I was reminded of that when I discovered this dude on youtube today. It made me realize how artists who stretch the breadth and scale of their toolkit, earn more and more flexibility to go further with their 'tongues'. Like the inverted root of a tree, becoming less trapped by definitions, can be incredibly freeing - deepening our roots and stretching our potential. And, it's something I appreciate a lot when I see it and when I feel it.
Happy Friday!
MonoNeon + Weather Report: "BIRDLAND"