Posts in category "Photos"

a path you didn't choose

People are for­go­ing their heavy coats for light jack­ets, even a litte skin. But win­ter still lingers in the crisp air, a reminder that it has­n’t been long since those frigid nights, but that it’ll soon be warmer and brighter. On the right days, I can wake up with the warmth of the sun on my face, dri­ve with the win­dows down, and eat din­ner in the day­light.

The cats sit intent­ly by the back door for hours, lis­ten­ing for any birds come home for Spring. They haven’t heard any since last year, and for Byron, that’s pret­ty much a life­time. Nowadays, I mea­sure time by how much heav­ier feels every day. There’s a com­fort to be found in know­ing that your cats are grow­ing and healthy.

cats eating

It feels like so much of what I used to cher­ish has fall­en to the way­side. Like I’m relent­less­ly try­ing to catch up on sleep, on time spent with friends, on gui­tar prac­tice, on var­i­ous projects, on get­ting to inbox 0. With time now such a valu­able resource, I’ve been re-eval­u­at­ing things to sal­vage as much as I can. Figuring out the dif­fer­ence between what I tru­ly enjoy and what I enjoy because I think I should, between what I need and what I want.

It’s strange to think that I’ve end­ed up here, and yet it’s hard­ly dif­fer­ent from where I was not so long ago. Life is always inter­est­ing, no mat­ter what age you are, and regard­less of how you think you’ve set­tled into it. If you’re doing it right, at least.

little victories

Remember when I used to write about every­thing? When there were a mil­lion dis­trac­tions to keep me warm, and all the lyrics cap­tured a moment I nev­er want­ed to for­get. The chang­ing sea­sons, the goose­bumps beneath my fin­gers, the taste of affec­tion; it all lived on in my songs, and I want­ed noth­ing more than to put it all on paper.

I’m try­ing to get there again. Not with dra­mat­ic, sweep­ing changes, but by rebuild­ing brick by brick. I can make it if I focus on putting one foot in front of the oth­er, liv­ing day by day.

a snowy end

So I’ve been cher­ish­ing the lit­tle vic­to­ries, cause they all count. And luck­i­ly, life is full of them.

this is my happy face

All i want to write about late­ly is sun­sets and awk­ward hugs and redis­cov­er­ing coconut mac­a­roons and under­wear and sec­ondish chances and grow­ing old and jus­tice and my new aware­ness of food indus­try issues and the smell of out­doors no mat­ter what the sea­son and want­i­ng to see Germany and my new Magic decks and that last date and how hard it is to do Street Fighter IV com­bos and pic­tures like this

golden girl

and not hav­ing to wear a coat any­more and hand­shakes after real­ly close games and peo­ple being nice to me and feel­ing more com­fort­able with barre chords and what Geneviève wears and Breaking Bad and Nick Drake’s life and root beer floats and the sound of a melod­i­ca and pret­ty cats and open­ing boost­ers and the lux­u­ry of say­ing no and how weird it feels to dri­ve some­where in your PJs and intro­duc­ing oth­ers to that aloe drink and the same old mem­o­ries that I still cher­ish and mini-Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and walk­ing base­lines and being sur­round­ed by such good peo­ple and hav­ing a PS3 and the time com­plex­i­ty of sort­ing algo­rithms and won­der­ing if it’s too late to call and how excit­ed Ryan gets when I vis­it and the songs I want to write and my mem­o­ries of America and scent­ed oils from the Body Shop and choco­late beers and the image of a gauzy dress in the sun.

the other side

Lila’s been my inspi­ra­tion late­ly. Her pho­tos are of such rou­tine sub­jects, but every frame is more than that moment. There’s some­thing about them that exudes glam­our and inti­ma­cy, as if her entire life was filled with cham­pagne and Channel.

I asked her what the­o­ry she fol­lows, what equip­ment she uses, expect­ing to learn some basic tech­nique I’ve some­how missed. Instead, she tells me she does­n’t do or use any­thing spe­cial. She does­n’t even know what she sets for expo­sure and tone, cause she always plays around and changes them for every pho­to she takes. A true Taoist when it comes to pho­tog­ra­phy, and a true pho­tog­ra­ph­er after my heart.

lila

“best birth­day ever.”, “coolest guy on the block”, “he is the one”, “London, I love you”.

One of my favourite sub­jects is her per­fect­ly-coifed, impec­ca­bly-dressed Norwegian boyfriend. Sometimes he’s just lying by the win­dow, and with his shirt off you can make out the fab­ric creas­es that have marked his back, reveal­ing that he’s recent­ly turned over on the bed. It makes you won­der what’s hap­pened, or what’s about to hap­pen. These are the details she’s cho­sen to cap­ture. These things were impor­tant enough for her to pick up her cam­era. There’s such affec­tion under it all, and per­haps that’s why it’s so fas­ci­nat­ing to see how the girl looks at the guy.

It’s the same with Aurora’s old entries:

Rolf is sit­ting a few feet away from me on a Sunday night and we’re about to play Settlers Of Catan online togeth­er. He’ll wake me with a kiss in the morn­ing and we’ll dri­ve to work togeth­er. I’m full of a tasty new sup­per that he intro­duced me to. We’ve just fucked on the floor.

Do I love him? Or do I love this? How big is the dif­fer­ence?

I’ve always won­dered what a per­son would say if she ever wrote about me the way Aurora wrote about him. To see a lover learn­ing and grow­ing, fig­ur­ing out their life and the world, and dis­cov­er­ing what part I play in all of that.

hope springs eternal

I awoke after five min­utes — or five sec­onds — to a changed world. For a moment, I was free of feeling…love, hate, jeal­ousy. And it all felt like hap­pi­ness.

—Maurice Bendrix, The End of the Affair

a fresh start

A fog hangs low in the streets, illu­mi­nat­ed by the indi­rect rays of an unrisen sun, leav­ing every­thing was awash in grey instead of white.

The sea­sons are chang­ing. Winter is offi­cial­ly over. It nev­er recov­ers from a day like this, when the inevitabil­i­ty of spring can be felt on your skin, as tan­gi­ble as any snowflake or rain­drop. This is when I can look for­ward to sleep­ing with the win­dows open again, a rit­u­al made only sweet­er by it’s ephemer­al­i­ty.

And with that moist smell heavy in the air, I for­get all else.