Gray Sunday

As every Sunday is on the seaward side of San Francisco at this time of year.

I'm scanning passages from this book and listening to Two Bicycles and Grouper.

My job right now consists of talking to strangers and convincing them to donate money. I didn't do well yesterday because I was in a misanthropic mood and the sun downtown was too hot and bright for my British-Isles-pale fogdwelling self (sunburned my eyeballs, guh), but the day did bring two of the coolest people I've met since starting.

They were sisters from Canada, I guess in their sixties or early seventies, and the talkative one was telling me all kinds of stories from the Women's Liberation Movement...about seeing Andrea Dworkin in this particular cafe in New York every morning and how she was really a very sweet person, etc. She was giving me names of second-wave feminist poets to write down and look up. It was a jewel of a conversation.

I'm going away for a few weeks to visit people. Primarily my freshman-year roommate, whom I haven't seen in THREE YEARS, and our former suitemate. Both New Englanders. It's been ages since I've gotten on an airplane by myself, with just a bag and the prospect of being away and somewhere unfamiliar for a while. I miss the feeling of that. I have grown roots in the last couples of years, and that's good too, but. There's always something or someplace to want.

(I banned myself from international traveling in early 2010, to think about contentment and luxury and consumption. Even though I've mostly been broke since then anyway, far-sickness still knocks.)

(I dreamed again last night about being back in Iceland. I have some variation of that dream about once a month or so. Like petrifying wood, the reality in memory is gradually replaced by dreamness and the imaginings of longing.)

Installations

My professor's definition of ritual: "a means of paying attention. physical acts that direct our attention to an idea, value, or concern. most need to be public to be meaningful."

I like it. And rituals. I like the small ones. E.g. putting on makeup (best of all: stage makeup), even though I don't generally wear any. Or braiding hair, or mixing ingredients for a recipe, or the way I clean my room, or preparing a letter to mail. To paraphrase my friend, if I didn't know that smoking is terrible for you (and if I could afford it, and tolerate the smell...), I'd be a smoker just out of enjoyment of the ritual of it.

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What I kept thinking when I sat on the dock in Wisconsin in the stillness, watching across the lake:

and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters

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"You think you live for a long time, cats can live until they are twenty-five. My cat died when she was eighteen. I miss her. She was all black; name was Merlin."
– a stranger, inexplicably addressing me

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A few things before I forget:

• I put up the wrong version of Sui's portrait in this post...fixed now.

• I added a shuffle button at the top of the sidebar a while ago, if you haven't seen it yet. I'm not really sure what the point is, but I like it.

• Heather too wrote some thoughts about happiness in response to my post (about happiness not being the point).

• Odessa and I had a cupcake afternoon documented with her new Lomo camera.
• And Olivia did a sketch off one of my photos from the lake.

Strangers, circa 1963

I found these prints at a scavenging center back home. Two are dated 1963; the rest are unmarked. They were in a basket with a note that said, "For anyone who will treasure them as I no longer do."

Knitting and watcher

Look how suspicious this man is of the girl sitting on the floor with a camera to her face. And he should be.

Splitsmas

1. a stranger whom I could not have NOT photographed. 2. the usual. 3. sidewalk furniture. 4. walking at home. 5. someone who was my friend when I was very young.

A picture I wouldn't have gotten

except for the fact that I had my camera clutched to my chest as I was walking, with the lens cap off and the exposure already set, so as soon as my brain registered woman panhandling in fairy wings I whipped around and TOOK IT! otherwise, I probably would have walked past and been too hesitant to walk back and get my camera out and get the shot.

this one was definitely the picture I was most anxious for while I was waiting to get the roll back from developing.

speaking of street photography: this guy's approach seems nuts to me, but it seems to work for him...

Heartache

I went to the doctor today about a minor concern, just a little inflammation in my heel.

I was sitting next to a tweenish boy and his mother in the waiting room. My ears are a little too sharp, maybe, or too curious.

I heard her say something like, "So you feel like you have to do these exercises?" and thought, Eating disorder. But not very seriously, just my brain skipping around.

But they kept talking and it turned out I was right. These little tidbits: You made yourself throw up. Grandma told me about how you were running around the parking lot and not eating very much. She sent me a picture, I could see your face was different. Push-ups in particular? Were you surprised to find out you'd lost weight? Dr. So-and-So the head of the eating disorders unit. You're thirteen now, what about down the road, if you were giving a concert, you would pass out on stage.

Thirteen. Murmuring, long legs, young face, big feet in Converse. Going to be admitted to an eating disorders unit. When I heard that, a little part of me was running away and sitting down somewhere small and hiding my face and crying hard hard.

I still have to assemble something called "Lake part three" because that's how I am, but today I only want to say, I am sad. Not about my life, but about other things in the world. I know there are glimmers of redemption everywhere, but I am sad that our world has to be so broken. I am sad that a thirteen-year-old person has be in so much pain.

I'm not Catholic, but I'm lighting a St. Jude candle lately when I pray. Patron saint of the helpless and alone, of hopeless cases, of things almost despaired of. Ore por mi, pues estoy solo y sin ayuda...

I light it for who I sometimes am, for the kid in the waiting room, and I light it for you. I do not know who you are, but you know who you are.