As the story gets scarier, where do you build from? a place of fear or a place of hope?
Hot Hut Hike (by Christopher Davila)
Mind wanting more
change on the lips
good & beautiful
CDMX. 2020.
seth
I picked Seth up at the Bent Prop in Hostel downtown. We were supposed to meet for a hike, and ten minutes before I was about to leave he shot me a message. “Hey man, my ride fell through. Any chance you could drive me?” Who organizes a hiking meetup and doesn’t have a way to get there? I had no good reason not to pick him up, so I obliged. Seth had just arrived in Anchorage a few days ago with some clothes, a camera, and $50 to his name. He went straight to work at the hostel (which would be his routine for the next 50 days). He hadn’t yet gotten out on the trail yet, and being with people as they first stepped out into the Alaska’s wilderness was quickly becoming one my favorite experiences. A young guy with a beanie and wayfarer sunglasses exited the hostel and let himself into my van. At that moment I couldn’t yet see his long flowing lion’s mane, or anything else that made Seth special. Before we began to head south on H Street, I queued up some music. I had just survived my first Alaskan winter, and was desperately missing my road trip that got me there. A huge part of that trip was the new Dispatch album, America Location 12. I added it to the queue. By the time we were on the Seward Highway, the heavy guitar of Be Gone came through the speakers. Seth couldn’t believe it.
“DUUUUUDE… You listen to Dispatch too? I love Dispatch. It’s a sign.”
“Really…” I responded, “I feel like their pretty popular…”
“Dude I don’t think so, I’ve never met anyone who’s ever listened to them before.”
“Hmm.” Does he really think this is a sign because we listen to the same pretty-popular band? That first hike was cut short, due to the knee deep snow that filled the valley, but we started to get to know each other. I realized we had a lot in common. We were filmmakers, photographers, and far from home. Later, I’d learn what else we had in common. A sister. A mom who does mosaics. A spiritual leaning. A trip to Vietnam at the same time the previous year. A love for cooking. A respect for plating the food you just cooked. A preference to keep plans loose and fluid. As we slid down Indian Valley on our asses we talked about how we were going to explore together. Make films and assist each other in reaching some creative goals. We were only a few hours into our friendship and talking about future plans. I knew he was special. Over the next few months, Seth and I got closer. He told me of his plan to buy a motorcycle and go from Prudhoe Bay down to Patagonia. Crazy. I loved it. Finally, thousands of miles from home, in Alaska, I was starting to consistently meet people who weren’t all talk. And sure enough, he worked his ass off every single day until he could afford a motorcycle (albeit, from a questionable guy at a highly secured property outside of Glennallen for cash… but that’s a story for another time). Through hikes, dinners, people watching out the kitchen window at the Bent Prop, walks through town, and campfires, I realized something about Seth. He would continue to tell me these stories of serendipity in his life. Things that just happened to fall into place. There were a few stories that were truly jaw-dropping, almost unbelievable. But more often than not they seemed sort of common. Coincidences I wouldn’t have thought twice about. The more time I spent with Seth, the more I realized that this was the way he lived his life. He chose to see the beauty and interconnectedness of our world. Even the small things. Seth taught me to open my eyes, and it changed everything. The signs are everywhere. Surrounding us. In the way the light slips through the blinds and projects onto the wall. In the way that a flock of birds always seems to swoop by when need a sign that my mom is still with me. In the song that plays through the speakers that you thought nobody else knew. I had become so used to people that were trapped in routine. The enemy of sensory living. Faded sounds, the colors subdue, and the muscles carry the body where it is expected, day after day after day. Seth is awake. When you’re constantly going to new places, you have to be. Or at least he chooses to be. What I once thought was strange, to see the connection in the tiniest of occurrences, has saved me in many ways. Maybe nobody would ever understand the power of a breath of fresh mountain air, I didn’t. Now I have that space in my heart to hold such a seemingly insignificant moment. Seth understands that feeling. Because that’s how Seth lives. It’s not all about the milestones that knock us off our routine. I found that if I am constantly waiting, waiting for my weeklong paid vacation a year, my friend’s graduation, or my cousin’s wedding, I’m missing out on so many little moments that will tell me that this is all worth it. I know that I still miss most of this small miracles that occur every day, because there are infinite (truly, infinite), but since knowing Seth I’ve found a new way to see my world.
Aren't we more complex?
I have spent most of my life outside, but for the last three years, I have been walking five miles a day, minimum, wherever I am, urban or rural, and can attest to the magnitude of the natural beauty that is left. Beauty worth seeing, worth singing, worth saving, whatever that word can mean now. There is beauty in a desert, even one that is expanding. There is beauty in the ocean, even one that is on the rise. And even if the jig is up, even if it is really game over, what better time to sing about the earth than when it is critically, even fatally wounded at our hands. Aren't we more complex, more interesting, more multifaceted people if we do? What good has the hollow chuckle ever done anyone? Do we really keep ourselves from being hurt when we sneer instead of sob?
Pam Houston, Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country
Can a photo be great?
All art is documentation. Eyes turned in or turned out, it’s all the same. Was this shared? Partly. I was not alone. The light was distinct, though, uniquely radiating to me. “Perspective.” Can a photo be great? What if I told you this man in the foreground was a well-known painter who walks 6 miles on the beach each morning and writes his prose in the sand, close enough to the ocean for the waves to sweep the words back into its depths? What if I told you this photo wasn’t mine at all— that it was taken in 1968 by Henri Cartier-Bresson when he took a holiday to the American west coast as a newly heartbroken man? What if I told you this was taken by a 4 year old who’s father buys her rolls of Kodak film instead of dolls (a gift that she would not understand until he dies of a heart attack just 2 miles from this beach)? What if I took this photo, and I told you what was going on in my heart when I pressed the shutter? From a thoughtful composition to a beautiful accident to the mystery inside (Isn’t it all those things, anyways?). The art is delicate. The story is unyielding.
contextmessages pt. 2
See Part 1
traveling alone is bittersweet
on the road in 2017. #WayOutThere
a small journal
contextmessages
Way Out There (2019)
Way Out There is a story about loss, traveling far to find something close, uncertainty, and aloneness without loneliness. It's about simple moments that profoundly changed me, keeping an open heart, and the kind warmth of strangers. This handcrafted photography magazine documents an 8,000 mile solo journey from Baltimore to Alaska, living in a van on the road. It includes 35mm film scans, personal journal entries, essays, and stories from the road. 72 pages.
