Gap

Eventually I think you'll be able to vote for her on the Disney Family website, Gap casting call thing. I just don't know when, as the entries that I submitted aren't showing up yet. Not my usual thing to be entering her in contests but we thought a Gap photo shoot might be fun for her...oh yeah and there is a chance to win a trip to the Bahamas.

Monet

I am making a book of photography for my mom for her upcoming birthday. While I feel somewhat arrogant thinking that my photographs are coffee table book worthy, I think that it is the type of gift that a mother would always appreciate, even if the photographs were blurry representations of a random sidewalk or a too close shot of someone's nose. Which mine are not. (Please forgive the over confident tone, but 4 years and thousands of dollars spent on dark room time has at least assured that my photos are in focus. And noses were never quite my forte.). Having just recently purchased a negative scanner, I have been thrilled to rediscover the memories that I have squished between plastic sleeves in a folder stained with developer. Distant road trips and drunken afternoons are squeezed beside reflective landscapes and forgotten friends like a timeline, my timeline. Thus, the trouble has not been finding adequate material. I have been looking for the right words to accompany the images.

In compiling my favorite images for the book, I realized that I tend to favor things that aren't necessarily "pretty". Crumbling buildings and rusted cars seem to be a theme in my work. Photos of old friends, despite smiles and perfectly descending sunlight, tend to have smoke or mud somehow incorporated into them. Images of flowers have Caravaggioed shadows and lack color. But despite what could perhaps be seen as a dismal outlook in my photos, my sunglasses aren't Nietzsche colored. I think fire escapes and decaying statues are beautiful. I love the feel of rotting wood and the stillness of an abandoned home. I thrill at the variance of color and texture that slow decay creates.



With his perfectly placed garden bridges and always in bloom flowers, my mom's favorite artist is Monet. (Side note: when my mom found out about the tattoo that I have on my back, she exclaimed, "You F**ked up MY Monet!". My response? "No I didn't, I just signed it for you"). Yet despite my mom's much more idealistic view of what constitutes "art", she has always been supportive of my photographs. Following a recent visit to my sister's steel mill, she called me to tell me that I needed to find some time to photograph the place, then described the water dripping down block walls, the broken windows set against steel girders, and the broken down machinery of years past.




In considering my mom, I realize that it isn't only in my photographic pursuits that she has been the personification of the steel girders she described to me. My entire life has been a mantra of belief in my own ability to succeed, mostly as a result of my mom's consistent encouragement and support. She has saved my writing from when I was eight, hung photographs that don't match her decor, and been in the audience of every event. She's seen me through break ups and hangovers, house buying and marriage, a real estate exam and a c-section. Much of my confidence comes not from the achievement of goals, but in the honest belief that no matter what I do, my mom will be there to cheer me to the finish line.



My mom and I aren't entirely alike, but perhaps where I have recently found a sublime appreciation for her is in the realization that she has attempted to understand every one of my phases, likes, and hobbies, despite not fully agreeing with my viewpoints or completely liking my lifestyle. When On the Road became my handbook for life, she read it. When an Ansel Adams exhibit was nearby, she took me. When Obama became my cause, she started deleting vicious emails about him or wrote to their senders to ask them to stop sending them to her. When I rant about the newest of my favorite authors, movies, or music, she listens. Perhaps that's the point. She listens. (And now she listens to Black Eyed Peas as a result).



There have been times when her "mama bearness" has embarrassed me. Most succinctly I remember having an ex-boyfriend who went away for 3 months and never wrote to me, despite my weekly letters and care packages, my breath holding before his anticipated phone calls, and my count down of the days until his return. Upon his return, my parents took us out to dinner. Midway through our meal, my mom turned to him and said, "So why didn't you ever write to her?". I was mortified. But now, with the softness of time and the onset of my own mama bearness, I am thankful. He didn't write to me because he was seeing someone else.

There are nights when Ava can't sleep and I hold her against my chest, smelling her hair, watching her breathe, and I imagine my mom doing that literally and figuratively for my entire life. There are days when Ava's laugh makes my heart feel lighter, when her request for "mama" melts it completely. I think, "This is how my mom feels about me". And all of her protectiveness, her sacrafices, and her heartache become clear. She can pick out a pair of jeans for me that will fit, even if I'm not there. She can scour the bookstore for a book that sounds like something I would like and succeed. So herein lies my trouble. How, with mere inches under each photograph, do I sum up my mom and the immeasurable impact she has has on me? How do I tell my mom that I finally understand?

Let Me Call You Back...

YOU Talking To ME?

Hop To It

Bottling the Desert

Cabazon. While the green hue that is cast across the bordering mountains this time of year makes it seem less like a desert community, tumbleweeds pile up like refugees against chain link fences and jackrabbits shade themselves in the shadows of coyotes. I would like to say, based on the sporadic, gypsy reminiscent neighborhoods that dot the landscape like ant colonies, that Cabazon was never meant to be a rest stop or a gateway or anything more than a dot beside Banning. But then the "World's Biggest Dinosaurs" opted to brave extinction for a chance at roadside attraction, a forgotten Bingo hall made itself over into a towering casino, and a faded outlet mall spread along the freeway like a designer disease. Windmills at the edge of town beckon motorists forward into the real desert of yuccas, rock formations, and golf courses, but Cabazon, with its burger joints and date shakes, yaps at their heels like a stray dog.


I am fascinated by the new against the more ramshackle, by the impermanence of this life in a flood zone, and by this rural town that hangs on to the map by railroad track staples and asphault threads. Like many desert towns, Cabazon emanates contradictions like heat from a Tucson highway. While a small corner market serves as a grocery store for the local community, the outlet mall boasts a Starbucks, a Haagen Dazs, and a Auntie Annies specialty pretzel shop. Shoppers coast on a diet of caffeine, sugar, and salt, while some residents take their meals filtered and in a paper bag. At the casino, a brazen Las Vegas style billboard advertises an authentic pow wow and gamblers, intent on nickle slots and roulette wheels, barely see the imported desert flora that graces their path to imagined riches.


Further south, a well maintained mobile home serves as a Set Free, an organization to help drug and alcohol abusers through work and salvation. Meals are shared at a redwood picnic table beneath a large jacaranda tree and men mill about drinking styrofoamed cups of coffee. Across the main road, sheriffs patrol the dirt roads and empty fields looking for drug dealers. Nearly every home has its own fence, yet dogs run free in the streets. New homes, their stuccoed exteriors painted in terra cotta, sand, or other desert hues, stare at the mobile homes, their sides dented and their roofs rusted, that huddle behind cactus gardens and mesquite. A perpetual wind coats everything in a gentle dust and a rock filled riverbed reminds golden weeds that their predecessors were green. Nearby and silent, save for the semi trucks making their pick ups, the Arrowhead bottling company continues about its business.

The tower of the casino stands like a lighthouse in an evaporated ocean, welcoming passerby to dry up their savings accounts. But behind the clink of ice against ice as another waitress is summoned, there is the sighing of ancestors whose traditions have been lost to material pursuit and of desert tortoises searching for water, dreading rain. The windmills, sentinels of the rural wanderer, whisper "go away" and yet the off ramp clogs like an artery and the parking lots swell. Cabazon.

Billboard

Traveling westbound along the 10, I noticed a billboard for a conservative talk radio station. It was simple and direct, with a solid colored backdrop and "When in doubt, tell the truth. "-Mark Twain. Having bored of the limited supply of CD's that I have in the car, I once tuned in to the station just in time to hear one of their hosts say, "Barack Obama used fear tactics to pursuade people to go along with socialism.".


Because I am trying to be patient with all sides to every story (feeling this will be the best way to teach Ava how to form her own opinions), I continued to listen to their complaints about the inaguration, their supreme belief that the country (with Obama at its helm) is headed to "hell in a hand basket", and their general displeasure with our new president. And I was really okay with their opinion, having heard all of their arguments at least a half dozen times a day for the past year. But then one host went into a tirade about how telling it is of Obama supporters that former President Bush was booed and serenaded with that "Hey Hey Hey Goodbye" song. I for one (and I know I am not alone) did not condone nor appreciate those actions, feeling that those particular fans lacked class. And, in case it isn't already quite evident, I am a huge supporter of our new president.


Needless to say, I have two things to say to the station:

#1. If you want to attract people to your view point, try not to insult them first.

#2. A better quote for your billboard would be: "First know the facts, then distort them as you please" -Mark Twain.

See, I'm Not Crazy (At Least In This Situation)

Remember my fear that Ava would get trapped in a front loading washing machine? There was an article in the news today about a 4 year old doing just that... I am saddened to say that the little girl died after her younger brother turned the machine on.

Face Space

Lynn's recent post about Facebook reminded me about a post that I have been meaning to write...


A couple of years ago Josh and I were swapping stories and talked about how there are friends and exes that we have been wondering about, but not necessarily enough to actually call or physically track down (who has time to lead a manhunt when there is vaccuuming to be done?). With Facebook and Myspace some of those "what have they been up to" questions are answered, usually before you even get in a quick hello. Jobs, familial status, location: its all on the page. How do they look now? Check out their photos. Its been interesting getting to know people again, tracking their lives so to speak, but without the responsibility of coffee dates and phone calls, awkard silences and "umm"s.


And for friends and family with which I have regular communication, I love the convenience of it all. I can plan coffee dates at midnight, inquire about a hair appointment at 7am, and take a quick look at wedding photos before I'm off to show property. Amy and I were recently able to chat online, as we both happened to be on Facebook at the same time (the IM features on both are great) and she didn't even hear the vaccuum. I have caught up with a friend who is somewhere in Central America and had a lunch date with a friend in San Francisco, all while simultaneuously getting work done; answering the phone at the office, checking my regular e-mail, tending to Ava.

I still love an old fashioned coffee or lunch date, lengthy conversation, and the opportunity to hug someone I haven't seen in awhile. And I have to wonder about the state of personal relationships as we grow ever more dependent on the cloak of the computer. But I also have to wonder if I would have a social life at all if Facebook and Myspace didn't fit so neatly into my whirlwind days.



* I can also get into a discussion about how one can define themselves on these sites, i.e. the profile photo that they choose, their mood and/or status update, etc. but I will save that for another day...

Trendy

The criminal trial for a Congolese warlord who "recruited" (stole) kids as young as 9 to fight in his army started this week. Hopefully this will be this year's latest trend.

Panda Land

Rather than filling our house with tons of gifts that would more than likely find their way to a charity within a year or two, Josh and I decided that it would be more enriching to take Ava somewhere every year for Christmas and/or her birthday. (Besides, between us we have three families and she is likely to be an only child, so I don't see her ever lacking in the toy or clothing department). We did get her the rocking panda (which my dad trumped with a rocking horse that shakes its tail and makes clomping noises... I will post a video of her on it once I learn how to transfer it from Josh's phone), but our real present to her was a trip to the zoo. We decided that Josh's birthday this past weekend would be the perfect excuse for me turn off my cell phone and for us to get away, if only for the day. (We couldn't have chosen a more beautiful weekend...the weather was perfect!). I was concerned that she would be too young to really enjoy it, but thankfully she has inherited my love for being outside in vegetation covered glory and both of our curiosity for new things. She loved it!

And while she foud new animals to intrigue and excite her (elephants, giraffes, monkeys, and meerkats), pandas are still the king of her forest. When she saw them , she pointed at them, then made kissing noises and patted her thigh. Based on recent reports of pandas "greeting" trespassers to their lair, I think it is probably better that they continued with their lounging and bamboo eating, but she was so excited! As you can see, she choose a newer, bigger stuffed panda from the gift shop (we named him Gou Gou-sp? aka "Big Big" after the male panda that was there), then abondoned him when she got home and saw old Panda.

Inauguration Day

I have been so excited for today and am even more excited for the years to come.

A rarity to have our television on all day, I have been transfixed by the events surrounding this grand day. At first disappointed that I hadn't won tickets to attend, I think I am better for being able to see more of what was happening, as cameras panned from events to faces, speeches to commentary, than I would have been had I been there, dwarfed against a backdrop of millions and struggling for a singular glimpse that may not have happened. Reporters have already articulated the myriad of ways in which today has stunning signifance and newspapers will be awash with photos to be savored from year to year, so I will refain from belaboring the points. Suffice it to say that hope, personified and framed, hangs in my hallway.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Observed.

I feel so privledged to have been born into a country that is able to so continuously try to perfect itself. Having recently been stunned into tearful silence by A Thousand Splendid Suns, I have been literally counting my blessings, as a mother, a daughter, and as a woman in general born in this great and varied land. In the past it has been a rarity that I have felt this patriotic. Which is not to say that I have updated my wardrobe with a complete array of red, white, and blue or that I have purchased stock in flag lapel pins. I still don't remember all of the words of the Star Spangled Banner (you wouldn't want to hear me sing it anyway) and I still sometimes confuse the tune of America The Beautiful with On Top of Old Smokey, but I am more thankful than I think I have ever realized.

Today I have been thinking about Afghanistan, at war for over 30 years, blanketing their women in obscurity, the scent of burnt books and art forever destroyed still fresh in the periphery of history. I have been envisioning 2000 year old sculptures crumbling beneath the force of dynamite and orphanages occupied by children who aren't all technically orphans. I have been intrigued about a nation whose trivialities over tribal loyalty have caused violence to cast a hazy shadow over an otherwise beautiful culture. And I have been thinking about how in the last 40 years our nation has gotten progressively better.

We are by no means perfect. As we compete for the bigger house, the more expensive car, the least amount of wrinkles, and the name brand clothes, our foreclosure rates soar. We can be arrogant despite high unemployment rates and selfish despite our blessings. But we unite when nature or an unforseen enemy destroys our cities, we defend our brother if only because he is ours, and we cry when we read emails about soldiers, children, or animals. We have enough water to bottle it, enough food to share, and clothes to give away. We have the luxury of complaint and the audacity of hope. We don't typically concern ourselves with the "ifs" in life, but with the "whens".

"I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word." As Afhghanistan continues its struggles to right its history's wrongs; rebuilding its cities, unveiling its women, and protecting itself against history's tendency towards repeats, we prepare to see another of Martin Luther King Jr's dreams awaken. We are a nation with its glass half full. And I am proud to make a toast.

Taking a Break...

"Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential. " -Barack Obama

I am so excited for the New Year! More thoughts later...