When I get to the desert, I find a place to park. I turn off the engine, then just sit back and let the quiet envelop me. The emptiness expands and something shifts inside.
I once had my radio/CD player stolen from my car while on a solo trip to Seattle. I dreaded the nine hour drive home to Montana. What will I listen to! Nothing!!! and it was the best nine hours I had had in a very long time. I was alone in and with my own thoughts. It was nice company.
"Which brings us to mortality, fear and oblivion." Don't stop there. I so enjoy the either/or mindset of your work. It feels to me like when I'm swimming in an olympic sized pool, how I hit the wall, and have to turn, go deep, or break for air, one of my favorite activities. If feels like you're finding the oxygen in people, the road, and yes, fear, and curiousity. I've enjoyed your writing for that aspect. Your photographs, too, very unyielding places in their way, lasting in spite of it all. How actually active the writing feels, like I'm in on the hood of the car or inside the horns honking, the rumble and tumble of the world, and then the bliss, whether it's the beauty of silence or bright sense of light that breaks through in your art. Thanks so much for offering your work, both in writing and photographs, and backstory. One thing it's not is quiet.
I lived in the east village for 30 years - Houston street was under construction the whole time. I moved to New Mexico 2 years ago because I love the desert and quiet so much. (Like you, I would have to escape the city and road trip out here once a year minimum.)
2 years in and I’m still de-stressing from NYC.... there’s a fantasist hotel/restaurant in Las Vegas that I drive up to every couple month for lunch. I’ve met so many ex-east coasters who’ve said the same thing - we have no desire to ever go east of the Rockies again....!
What an ode. ❤ This reminds me of my dad's stories in some ways, little snippets of life that offer me a window into something I've never experienced but can feel as I read.
This stood out most to me: "the glory all around me."
I think silence, quiet, and deliberate alone time awaken us to that glory. There's so much noise inside and outside our heads these days, so many distractions, that we need to step back to appreciate that there is still much glory and beauty in the world.
I once had my radio/CD player stolen from my car while on a solo trip to Seattle. I dreaded the nine hour drive home to Montana. What will I listen to! Nothing!!! and it was the best nine hours I had had in a very long time. I was alone in and with my own thoughts. It was nice company.
"Which brings us to mortality, fear and oblivion." Don't stop there. I so enjoy the either/or mindset of your work. It feels to me like when I'm swimming in an olympic sized pool, how I hit the wall, and have to turn, go deep, or break for air, one of my favorite activities. If feels like you're finding the oxygen in people, the road, and yes, fear, and curiousity. I've enjoyed your writing for that aspect. Your photographs, too, very unyielding places in their way, lasting in spite of it all. How actually active the writing feels, like I'm in on the hood of the car or inside the horns honking, the rumble and tumble of the world, and then the bliss, whether it's the beauty of silence or bright sense of light that breaks through in your art. Thanks so much for offering your work, both in writing and photographs, and backstory. One thing it's not is quiet.
I lived in the east village for 30 years - Houston street was under construction the whole time. I moved to New Mexico 2 years ago because I love the desert and quiet so much. (Like you, I would have to escape the city and road trip out here once a year minimum.)
2 years in and I’m still de-stressing from NYC.... there’s a fantasist hotel/restaurant in Las Vegas that I drive up to every couple month for lunch. I’ve met so many ex-east coasters who’ve said the same thing - we have no desire to ever go east of the Rockies again....!
What an ode. ❤ This reminds me of my dad's stories in some ways, little snippets of life that offer me a window into something I've never experienced but can feel as I read.
This stood out most to me: "the glory all around me."
I think silence, quiet, and deliberate alone time awaken us to that glory. There's so much noise inside and outside our heads these days, so many distractions, that we need to step back to appreciate that there is still much glory and beauty in the world.
Thanks for sharing.