Tuesday, March 27, 2012

My brother cleaned out his closet in preparation for moving this summer, and he uncovered an old film camera with 3 images already snapped, and the rest of the roll free. We couldn't figure out whose it was, or from when, or what the pictures might be of, so he gave it to me to finish and get developed. So I took it with me this weekend to Lind's farm, and I tried to snap as many as I could. But I'm a terrible photographer; I can never seem to be able to step back from the moment and capture it. And there were so many moments this weekend I wished I had captured-

Ah, but, sometimes it's too fresh to be able to write about. I will say it was a weekend of friendship, good food, hilarity, solemnity in the face of grandeur.
Of Northern Lights and coyotes howling.
Of wood fires and cold beer.
Of dreamless nights of deepest slumber, and a couple of tears.
But mostly laughter.
Maybe I'll leave you with that, to stitch together a picture of your own creating. And when I develop the film, I'll share that.

But it has left me with a deep purring in my chest, the faint rumblings of travel-envy, the stirrings of itchy feet. I am trying to ignore it, but I am already starting to get excited to be on the move again, to fly, to swim, to be on trains, planes, and automobiles; to meet new people, to be homesick for a home that doesn't exist anymore. To eat strange foods, and not understand what people are saying around you, and to sweat from hauling a backpack containing all you need to survive, and to feel a salty breeze on a ferry deck on your sunburnt face.
To finally have time to think, and write it down, and go over events in my life and analyze and understand and cement the lessons learned. To not be sedentary but moving. To experience. Because it's from experience that you draw true inspiration. A whole messy stash of experiences, a stock-pile, a heap of tangled emotions and images and words and thoughts.

2 comments:

  1. I get that feeling all the time: first that there's so many moments going by under my nose that I wish I could properly capture on film, and second, that purring, travel-hungry feeling, the need to acquire a whole messy stash of experiences, a stock-pile, a heap of tangled emotions and images and words and thoughts (that was BEAUTIFULLY poetic, the way you wrote that). To be put in a box and discovered by my ancestors deep in a creaking attic somewhere, and provide many hours of entertainment for them (and maybe even the key to their futures).

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  2. Exactly. To leave hidden for children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews to find. To be thought of in a split second curious way. I would LOVE to discover boxes of old photos, books, journals.

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