Infinite space

I could spend all my time alone, inside my head. Stopping and slowly smelling, discovering every curl of every bloom of every idea that pushes through the fleshy undergrowth. I could walk through the infinite space of a feeling, testing out the words to describe it by rolling them around my mouth like marbles. Left to my own devices, I could wander there and never come up for breath. Buried deep, secrets to make the heart burst, the mind shatter, the voices howl, whisper, mutter, moan. I could keep them company. Find the secrets to make the heart whole again, piece the mind back together and soothe the voices to silence.

I could paint the underside of my skin forest green, my ribcage a stone gray, my hands a deep vermillion. I could obsess over the memories of places I’ve never been before. That time we never floated on the mist shrouded lake, flame torches in our hands with honour on our lips and murder in our hearts. That time you never said you loved me and meant it.

All this in infinite space, alone, inside my head.

R*U*N*A*W*A*Y

The flight from neighbourhood demons. I wrap myself in the cloak of anonymity and strike out into unfamiliar terrain, mountains of obscurity and nameless faces in a similar migration to my own.

I’ve been running for a long time… How about you? Veiled, probing questions over cheap cups of coffee. Sun-blasted truckstops in the middle of the Mojave punctuate the streaming barren landscape. I drive from the desert to the sea, across alpine ridges, high sierra lakes, passing all manner of lost souls along the way. Disappearing souls who don’t want to be found… Where being found denotes a return to a place they never wanted to be in the first place. Instead, the mask of the wandering stranger, observing from afar the things that make the lives of others: Salvation, intimacy, fear, doubt.

If you’re reading this, I’m still on the run.

California | USA

Road trip journaling

Slide out of the city on those hot, sticky wheels. Grey ribbon of road and a blue sky so bright it seems white. Throw your head back and howl at the freedom of a horizon unencumbered. Marvel at the little things, the perfect mathematics of cumulus clouds and wheat. Bare your skin to the sun and be lost for a while in a place that doesn’t belong to you. Fall exhausted in a heap at the end.

Submerge

I know these people. I know their lives. Photojournalists, photographers, visual story-tellers, however you want to put it, they see life, often the darker side, and bring it to the rest of those who do not travel and do not see.

The consequence is a solitude and a dark shadow that flits within the dim retina of their eyes. The solemn Onlooker. Submerged beneath the surface of raucous laughter, devil-may-care attitudes and sunlit smiles are memories that can’t be let go of. Vast journeys that sear the skin and the appraisal of a thousand strangers, locked in their own battles and greeting the Onlooker as they win trust and weave intricately beneath the surface… a poem, a story, an idea… with images.

FLASH

Objects in the night. Running feet. Rapid fire heartbeats.

Charlottesville, Virginia

PM

My wanderings in the PM.

(A lonely place to find yourself)

Somewhere along the Dan Shui River, Taiwan.

AM

My parents recently bought a holiday apartment in Taiwan somewhere along the Dan Shui river.

I’ve called it “A lonely place to find yourself”.

My wanderings in the AM.

 

Modern Romance

Baby I’m afraid, of a lot of things but
I ain’t scared of lovin’ you
Baby I know you’re afraid of a lot of things but
Don’t be scared of love, ’cause

People will say all kinds of things
that don’t mean a damn to me, ’cause
All I see, is what’s in front of me, that’s you

Well I’ve been dragged all over the place
I’ve taken hits time just don’t erase
And baby I can see that you’ve been fucked with too
That don’t mean your lovin days are through, ’cause

People will say, all kinds of things
that don’t mean a damn to me, ’cause
all I see, is what’s in front of me, that’s you
Well I maybe just a fool, but I know you’re just as cool
And cool kids, they belong together.

~ lyric excerpt from “Modern Romance” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Histories

Military histories, once vicious, now sanguine. Once bloody, now clean. Monuments raised in memorial, weapons mounted as artefacts. We like to think that we remember to not repeat the mistakes of our forebears. We’d like to be smarter than that.

Lakeside

Half submerged in dark green water, the bloated whiteness of a fish belly-up lies prone against a swath of brown canvas. Nearby, a lakeside restaurant filled with people chat and eat, overlooking the calm waters, overlooking the decay that delivers their meals.

I read that Agent Orange still seeps into the wet earth of Vietnam.

Some memories fade fast and become distant stories long before their time.

Vietnam | November 2010