Jess

This lady has a very particular and lasting place in my heart.

 

St. Paul, June, 2013

She also generally loathes pictures of herself, but the black and white bike image is magical because she likes it. We (collective small group effort) built my Frankenbike that day (and the previous day), and I rode away on it shortly after dusk.
Later that night, high on empowerment and bike riding adrenaline, I went for some river rock/ bridge climbing adventures with a buddy and climbed higher than I normally would have. It was great except I broke my foot climbing back down.
My foot was still broken that summer when I left for North Carolina and the blueberry harvest in Maine, so the bike sat unridden through till February.



We have known each other uncomfortably well. We still do, I believe.
Sometimes that has made distance or difficulty in relating a far more sensitive issue than it might ordinarily be.
It can be rather terrifying to have someone know you so well, and you them, especially if you fear some (slight) misunderstanding has taken place.

We learned and saw a lot of things for the first time together. That can be a vulnerable thing. We lived out of her car together for 4 months when we were 21 and both needed to get the F out of D.
And that was only the beginning of it all.

Maine Coast at last, for the first time! 2009

It's a special thing how much you can learn about your self getting to know someone really, really well.
Jessica and I had a sparky relationship from fairly early on. Sparky in the way that things zing when understanding happens in a new and unexpected place. HOLY SHIT I know exactly what you're talking about!!! ....is kind of how it went for us. And it was loud, and excited, and wordy.

                             

Pennsylvania, 2009

We went for a lot of walk and talks and said Totally a lot. Later on we went through different phases of exploring new ways to say or emphasize Totally to recapture or re-spice it's effectiveness as Affirmation and Agreement.
And in discovering so many ways in which we related in our sameness we also found out how profoundly different we are.     Trite as that sounds (to me, re-reading that last sentence now), I can't delete it because it's true true true. That process can be really fun and really horrible, both validating and confidence shaking, heart wrenching and hilarious!

My god, people are Different than each other!! Who knew??

Delaware, 2009

Jess and I have had great adventures together. We can get ourselves into ridiculous situations and varying degrees of actual peril and absurdity and have a rip-roarin' good time. I think we both get off a little bit on hardship (whatever that means exactly) and have mostly delighted in our misadventures.
We've unlocked secret, sacred kingdoms together.

Because of the especially close nature of our friendship, people have often asked us if we were "together"

April, 2012

Yeah sure, of course we're together. 

Traveling through life side by side for a time.

 We've had a lot more distance this last while, space between us, time space and miles. We were preparing for that for a while. It was pretty difficult at times. But things seem to keep happening just the right way, and things we once knew were true but then got all doubtful of along the way, seem to still be true.
Growing can be a really painful thing.

We still find a very particular and idiosyncratic brand of understanding with each other. Profound and nonsensical.

                                                                Totally, totally, totally.

cheating....

....as I mostly wrote this on december 6th, 2014.

 Scribblings from the Las Vegas Airport. Weird fucking place, believe it or not.

$12 beer and some tiny food.

I did not know this beer was $12 when I ordered it as a novelty item, a prop, an excuse to sit here longer and count time in people.

Slot machines and custom poker chips. Cowboy hats and iPads.

Airports are strange.

It's odd- I feel excited at the prospect of home and all the possibilities there, and on this next leg of journey, but already nostalgic for the things I just left.

I know from experience that this will fade but not disappear.

Collecting homesickness for places and people and moments.

The particular moments are gone forever. The places- I'll come back to some.

The people are more variable than all that.

Full moon again.

           Small things I should've scribbled down; I think even as I let them slide through the cracks and onto the floor.

Planes go much faster than makes a lot of sense.

I hope this next one is spacious as well. Perhaps a mistake. Everyone with their devices. Traveling alone (as with many other solo activities) is a very particular experience. Serendipitous, sometimes. 

The lady who's just sat down across from me ordered the exact same combination of tiny side foods I did when I arrived. It's like staring at a mirror, except she's older, business-like, Korean, fancy, friendly. 

It actually has not very much at all in common with staring at a mirror. But surely it means something, none the less! 

An exercise....

I'd like to challenge myself to choose a photograph, or several, every day (or close to) and write something about it.

I'd like to not worry so  much about it being read or seen and how it looks.
This is something I'm trying to practice in general- being less cautious, fearful, stingy and calculated in what I put out into the world.....focusing rather on putting out something honest, and letting the pieces fall as they may; let those who think anything of it think whatever they like! Ha!

Yesterday as I stood in a laundry room painting shellac onto floorboards (one of the final steps in eradicating any trace of bad Leroy, the curmudgeonly and spiteful pee machine of a cat who once occupied this home...not my home, someone I like and who also pays me's home) I wrote some excellent pieces in my head.
But the most daunting part of setting off on any adventure, and in this case I am talking specifically about a creative one, is that initial show down with the first blank page.

I always felt like I empathized pretty well with Bret Easton Ellis' fondness for starting a novel in the middle of a sentence....like someone who jumped a long time ago and their feet only just hit the ground. Naturally it ends the same way. You know, just very in your face with it; "This is obviously not the beginning. It's just when you start listening. There is not end, you just don't know what happens next."
It's definitely a tool I've used in the past, even just in journaling , to alleviate some of the pressures of the burdensome task of over thinking a goddamn First Page.

So there.