What strand of family life do you represent?

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In 2009 Miriana Cook wrote about Barak and Michelle in the New Yorker,  and quotes our current  president speaking about his family and his wife's family. 

This is what he is reported to have said: 

BARACK OBAMA: All my life, I have been stitching together a family, through stories or memories or friends or ideas. Michelle has had a very different background—very stable, two-parent family, mother at home, brother and dog, living in the same house all their lives. We represent two strands of family life in this country—the strand that is very stable and solid, and then the strand that is breaking out of the constraints of traditional families, travelling, separated, mobile. I think there was that strand in me of imagining what it would be like to have a stable, solid, secure family life.

From this point Barak expresses in this quote, I am in the strand of family life that is breaking out of constraints. And, like Barack of 1996, I  spend a good amount of time imagining what it would be like to have a stable, solid, secure family life. All the wondering hasn't yet answered the question for me. I am still moving and searching, and still don't know what that would look like. Though, in the the ongoing search, I'm grateful for all the friends I've made and the fine network they make from coast to coast such that I am never too far from a familiar face. 

Why look at animals?  by John Berger.
There is so much beyond the direct realm of medicine that I still want to direct my attention to. The language of animals when it is noon in the living room, for one. For now, just packing dishes though, one fragile ceramic shape, and then the next.
Wangechi Mutu featured in a recent New York Times Book Review uses stunning images and collage elements to comment on the personal and political.

Time, more time, is what I ask to let my mind roam in the language.

Off the map.

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Off the map

How here?

What more?

Nothing expected.

                                 Beautiful land.

Heavy snow.

Lighted trees.

Nothing floats.

People few.

Everywhere.  

                                Sound.

Bird sings.

Everything.

New.

Everywhere.

Strange.

Nothing.

Expected.

Everywhere.

Feeling.

Wonder.

Awe.

Uncertainty.

Where to now?

What step next?

Familiar. 

                              All gone.

Nothing hold.

Nothing lose. 

In Milwaukee with Lily Yeh and Keith Hayes of beintween.

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At the tire shop with Joe

I didn't take many pictures this trip, but found a few good murals, like this colorful one in the Meterie.

I was working with a point and shoot and was in the shadow of my impending third year exam for residency and not sure whether I am meant to be taking pictures in New Orleans. I do love it, but not living here I don't feel rooted enough at times to take on a big photography project here. Either way, it was nice to sit with Joe at the tire shop and just talk with someone outside my usual sphere.

Driving up to the shop, I am always a little timid and uncertain.  I don't know who will be there or what they might be thinking. Once I start talking with Joe, I always feel at ease.  Today was the first warm day with temperature over 60,  which made it comfortable sitting out front with Joe. We talked about relationships, rabbit hunting, the economy, Vietnam, the need for trade schools, learning to weld, the Indians, the parades at Mardi Gras, people riding bicycles naked, men dressed as women, how he got the gash on his left hand in a knife fight, growing okra and  collard greens in side-yard  kitchen gardens, which everyone used to have, where to eat in NOLA,  his dogs, his father getting old and lonely, his sister-- everything but physics and k-space, which I needed a break from anyway.  He even showed me his 38 Darriger.

During the time we talked people walked by waving and shouting greetings. Some came up and asked for favors.  I watched him turn down one woman who asked for money to buy dog food, then turn around and give ten dollars to another woman who wanted to take her daughter to the Martin Luther King parade.  People are asking for his help all the time. "Friends and family will keep you poor," he said. Even so, he goes along more often than not, pulling out a bundle of cash wrapped in a rubber band. Bundles of cash like that  remind me of my grandfather. When Joe says "no" it feels a little tense, but once he's made up his mind, he sticks to it.

Violators with be TOAD!!

I am not sure what it will mean for my future if I admit I had to read the above sign more than once, twice even, before it occurred to me something was a little amiss.  I'm in New Orleans right now, and maybe under the influence of one too many bags of VOODOO chips.  Of coarse, I thought, looking at the colorful sign, if you park in this driveway you will be:

It made perfect sense until the voodoo chips wore off, when I realized maybe they meant you will be:

I've made many such errors, often feeling more in tune with sound that formal spelling.  In New Orleans it may not be just a spelling mistake, especially if you poke fun at the local poetic and musical souls.

Just This:

Two nights ago, just this: the radio turned up, the window rolled down, my hand out side the window in the wind.

And then more: I stopped for the red light and leaned over the steering wheel, waiting for green, and go, and the mad wind that rises from the road to lift my hand, a five fingered soul ever so slightly from its slump.

Iowa Poem #4 , Thanksgiving Day 2013

If you came to Iowa now, you would find
Prairie grasses talking, some to themselves

Tired from a summer of waving and shouting

To every passing car and plane, some in hushed

Tones under a feather blanket of earlier-than-expected snow.

Some would be pointing right up at the heavens,

The memory still fresh of being razor-sharp and green.

Blades now brown and edges worn smooth,
They rage to God against the dying of the light.

And to their neighbors, who they are sure cannot hear,
They brag, "If summer never ended, I could have made it,

Made it all the way....."

      

One holds the record for bending so as not to break.
He tells terrible tales of coming back from near dead,

Of being cut, mowed and trampled.  

One does not speak; the wind plays his body like a saw.

Can you hear the wobbly melody?
Heel and toe, heel and toe, heel and toe.
To  the wonder of  having learned to dance
Among a rustling symphony of shaking shoulders,
To having existed at all.

Sarah Averill, 
Novermber 28, 2013

Edward Hopper wanted to spend his life painting light hitting the wall. Inside walls, outside walls, some psychic walls. I used to think this was stupid or at the very least bizarre.

But then I've experienced it--light hitting the wall.  Mostly its in the late afternoon when the sun is low in the sky, the way it sends light at an angle through the glass or through the air to hit something as close to dead on as it can before it dips out of sight or turns red and looses steam and just can't turn it on any more.

First, it's "how the hell does it do that?" My mind makes feeble attempts to puzzle out how photons, little electromagnetic particle/wave/don't know who or what they are/ can turn dark into light. Faster than a shadow can fall, I'm exhausted by the effort and the questioning softens into "wow, just look at that." It's gone through the glass, my eyes are singing and I can drop several gritty problems that have bobbed up and down the column of my consciousness, defeating my efforts at  "be here now."

When you live without as much of that as you can get, it takes more than a few days to slip into taking it for granted and the ennui at endless sunshine, I suppose. Before Iowa I lived in Syracuse NY where I made a sport of finding breaks of sun in dense Great Lake clouds. One of the first things I noticed moving here was that it was sunny for entire days and sometimes weeks.

That by long way of saying, I am taking winter coming on alright, mostly by running in the dark along the river, and noticing sun hitting the wall on its daily rounds.

The Other New York

Upcoming show at the Lodi Laundromat
1600 Lodi St, Syraucse, NY 13208
will be part of The Other New York.
At the Lodi site there will be a photo-give away from 2 to 4 pm
on September 13th.

Just following the Lodi photo-give away
there will be an  opening reception at Light Work
this Thursday, September 13th  from 5 to 7 p.m.
The address is: 316 Waverly Avenue, Syracuse, NY 13244
Anyone in the area is welcome to come to either venue.

Summer in the City brings kids out to the streets. It reminded me of my own childhood spent riding around doing stunts on bicycles. The kids on the Northside will ride their bikes and boards anywhere, the middle of the street preferably.

I am back in Syracuse, back on Lodi. First stop, checking in with Xai to get permission to hang out next week and prepare a new body of pictures for the upcoming  "The Other New York" biennial sponsored by the Everson Museum.  Xai asked Reth what he thought and he also gave the green light. So, I'm back on the streets, talking, connecting, taking pictures.  These women had recently been to a wedding and their hands were decorated with tell-tale henna.

Lower 9th

After finishing up at the Tire Shop with some pictures of Gladdy and her grandson, I made a short visit to the lower ninth ward to see how things were at the Lower 9th Ward Village.  Mac has continued to draw volunteer groups from all over the country.  He's painted his message and vision out on the front of the place.  He still envisions bringing more of the former neighborhood residents home from all the places they have scattered.  I talked to people who were just getting their insurance settlements and getting ready to rebuild. Many houses remain boarded up. There's still not much more than the orange store and a gas station on the main street, although some people are growing vegetables and keeping chickens for eggs and such like.  The gaps that need filling are still bigger than I can get my  head or heart around.   With characters like these, though it's hard to lose hope.

Barber Shop

I got invited to take pictures at a barber shop on Gentilly near the race track. Curious. I had tried to take pictures at a barber shop in Syracuse and was declined by the owner a few years ago. That was a bigger place. This was a smaller operation and the people working there were open to letting me hang out. Watching men touch each other with such gentleness while performing this seemingly mundane task of giving a hair cut was profoundly moving.  There were a few good laughs too.

Hopes, Fears, Dreams, Connection

Back in New Orleans for the first time in a year, I found being alone on the streets talking to people got me out of the stress of life as a resident at the hospital. It was good to be away from the cold academic sphere, to hear unpredictable bursts of music from every street corner and restaurant. I visited Joe Peters and got one of the young men working there to take our picture together. Mr Peters always inspires me with his commentary on life, relationships, kids, dogs, work, place, community. I talked to him about having a show someday at the tire shop and he surprised me by saying he would be agreeable to such a venture. Sometimes, I still think of walking away from the stress of medical training, but I know that I there is something that I get out of the demands of my professional training that keeps me going even though it squeezes me until I feel I'm going to pop. It gives me something to fight against. Don't we all need a good fight?

Back in New Orleans

Just preparing to visit and reviewed last pictures only to have my hard drive crash, so I'll be going back empty handed. Zen. Let go. Here is a picture form the visit before the last. It was stored elsewhere. Everyone has something. No one has everything.

Back in the Neighborhood Labor Day Weekend

I went back to visit Horace and Christine and deliver pictures to them and their neighbors. Some pictures got delivered to friends and neighbors because I knew I didn't have time to keep looking. I also posted poems with pictures on the laundromat wall and talked to Xai about doing that  more in the future. She was open to it and her kids helped me put some of them up.

In the park I took some pictures of kids playing in a fountain and doing cartwheels down the street. I had the usual problem whey they approached me and asked me to take pictures.

"I need to talk to your parents first and make sure they are o.k. with it."

We walked a block down the street to get permission. Then they swarmed me with "me first, now me, take my picture, I want to be a model."
I had a hard time with wanting to keep them happy while also wanting them to take turns. At some point one cried and I felt rediculous.

Then another parent came over and asked me who I was, said she watched over all the kids in the neighborhood and wanted to know who I was. It was strange to say that I lived in Iowa now, made me wonder why I was back in Syracuse. I still feel connected, but having to verbalize the reality of the distance and say it would be some time before I could deliver pictures was hard.

"Maybe by Holloween I will be back."
Sometimes even when I lived in Syracuse the hospital swallowed my time and I had trouble getting things delivered in a timely manner. Sometimes the surprise of getting them later is o.k. and sometimes I lose people.

Masterworks of Ming

Kay Ryan

Ming, Ming

such a lovely

thing blue

and white

bowls and

basins glow

in museum

light

they would

be lovely

filled with

rice or

water

so nice

adjunt

to dinner

or washing

a daughter

a small

daugher

of course

since it’s

a small basin

first you

would put

one then

the other

end in. 

Poetry is Not a Luxury

The title of an essay by Audre Lourde published in Sister Outsider I read twenty years ago in college. I still remember the astonishment I felt at reading just the title. The idea that something as refined as poetry was essential struck a chord in me that reverberates still. The essential experience of beauty or joy in the expressive power of words.

Today I went in search of poems to post on the wall of the Laundromat. Thinking of all the children I watch walk home from school through the neighborhood, I wonder what awaits them from tender love to rough and tumble. This poem by Gwendolyn Brooks I thought should be among them.

 After School

Not all of the children
come home to cookies and cocoa.
Some come to crack cocaine.
Some come to be used in various manners.
One will be shot on his way home to warmth, wit and
                   wisdom.

One teacher mutter "My God, they are gone."
One is ripe to report Ten People to the Principal.
One muses "How have I served or disturbed today?"
One whispers "The little Black Bastards."
One sees all children as clothing: the blue blouse --
the green dress -- the tight-fitting T-shirt.

One will take home for homework each of the
twenty, the thirty, the forty one.


from In Montgomery and Other Poems 2003. 

Iowa, the Interrupters, a short visit to Syracuse.

I'm in Iowa now and missing Syracuse.

I went to Chicago and saw the film the Interrupters, a documentary about the efforts of community residents and former gang members working towards reducing the violence in some of Chicago's neighborhoods.  Ceasefire is one of the organizations represented.  After watching the film and meeting Dr. Gary Slutkin, I was inspired to think again about what I want to do with the precious time I have here on the planet. I wish so that I had more clarity. Questions are my constant companion these days. My friends say I have too much time on my hands. How that can be in the throes of residency, I don't know.

Hula in Madison

I'm away from Syracuse and missing home, but finding music and making new friends in the midwest.  Went up to see Greg Brown at Sugar Maple Music fest and made it just in time for the two encore songs. I figured it was better than nothing. Took this picture of a girl with her hula hoop and met Lewis Koch.  His Garageography show provides me with an interesting model for future shows.