Photographs: November 2009 Archives

I'd like to write a book entirely about longing.

But of course, any book I'd write would be bound to be about longing.

I wake in this weather to an onslaught of it. The cloudy day outside, the wind, the smell of half-gone leaves all send my head into a place with a campfire, with a woman in a long muddy dress walking by with a bowl of something hot in her hand.

There's a dog running around barking, and a man sitting at the fire tosses his head back and you see that his beard is mostly red as he confesses that the secret ingredient to his amazing stew is Alpo.

It sounds like fiction, but I've been there. I've been in the place where there are people telling stories, where a two-foot bottle of sake is warming by a giant fire. The first time I ever tried it. It tasted just like the fire.

I don't know what it is about fall, especially the late part of it - the part that's really a teenaged winter - that pulls me into these times. These times that I never got enough of, that I felt, even then, might have been dreams.

There was a man I should have run off with. I wonder now and then what would have happened. I was awfully young. It might not have gone well.

Yesterday I was thinking about all the bloggers writing about the pleasures of being indoors, snug and knitting with friends or loved ones nearby. It seems to be everyone's favorite thing about winter (except for those who look forward to XC skiing).

I am having the opposite response. The cold air makes me yearn for mountains and wilderness and open lonely roads. It makes me want to tromp around in woods. It makes me want to hear wolves.

It makes me wonder if I will end this life as I began it, out of step with the perpetual roll of society. Off the grid, out there somewhere like Jeremiah Johnson, waiting to get eaten by a wild bear. Or maybe just on the bike, with a few cooking supplies and a really good book and that tiny coffeepot. I wonder who would watch the cat.

I know someone who's planning a cross-country ride with his giant dog. I kinda wanted to ask if I could come along.

Well, I am grumpy and exhausted and knitting something pretty. It's a present for a friend's sick mom. No occasion, other than a way to say, "I'm sorry you're so ill and I really like you and I wish I could make it go away but since I can't I am making you something very pretty and soft to wear in hopes it will cheer you up now and then in a small way."

I believe these sorts of gestures count. Both because I have to, and because I know that when I feel shitty a small kindness will often feel big. It will feel like the universe apologizing to me for things being so shitty.

Anyway.

I can hear Anthony Bourdain on the TV, and I am annoyed with him. His whole job is a frivolous, luxurious endeavor dedicated to showing off his rockstarness, and even though I don't usually feel that way about him, at the moment I am annoyed. I am annoyed by the fact that it's trivial, when there are big things to deal with, and the whole venture seems shallow to me.

I'm sorry, Tony. It's just a mood. I usually like you, and I usually think your intentions are good. I think you know your job is trivial, and you try to make up for your good fortune by showing off interesting cultures, etc. But tonight I just can't get it up for you or your silly little show. I am waiting for Sherlock Holmes to come on so I can look at that evil, ugly Moriarty.

There is deep loneliness at the heart of my life, and I usually just ignore it, and solider on, and often take a certain amount of pride in doing so.

Chalk it up to having watched a well-done version of Pride and Prejudice. Damn that Jane Austen. How dare she open up my heart like that? The bitch.

It's outrageous that I'd even consider posting on a day like today, which stands as a dull and scratched example of a day seemingly ruled by Murphy's Law. Plus, there's the whole tower of indignant fury situation leftover from last night. But then I think, why should I only post when I am filled with sunshine and flowers? I am rarely filled with sunshine and flowers, and neither is this city, and there may be a connection between the two.

I took these pics at the beach on a cold but sunny day as the light was entering that rosy zone photographers refer to as golden hour. Or maybe it's wannabe photographers who refer to it that way. I don't much like the term, but I love the light.

I have always liked beaches in winter, and Boywich and I used to go to summer-crowded places and enjoy the desolation of them in February. There's something magical about wearing a big turtleneck sweater on a beach. It's kind of like the allure of a fireplace, writ large and larger and largest. Wild and delicious. My favorite combo.

Anyway, this was a bike ride to the beach, and it would have been perfect had I dressed warmly enough. We were all thrown by the fact that it was nearly 70 degrees (F) in the city, and I wanted to travel light, so I underpacked. Oops. Frigid. I ran around to get warm, carrying the pocketcam in my pocket (natch), and took these.

I haven't been wowed by its low-light performance, but in light like this, the new pocketcam is a marvel.

It's a tiny little thing, even smaller than my last one - considerably smaller than my damn brick of a phone - but it has big eyes.

I love these. The rosy light, the textures, the sense of space spreading out before you. I wish I were someplace like that right now.