contextmessages pt. IV
and that's not nothing
The Third Self
Mary Oliver - Full interview
city lights
The buildings in cities make us feel small, but the stars would make the buildings shrink to nearly nothing. If only we could see them.
looking out
From Ross Gay’s Book of Delights
_______________
I suppose I could spend time theorizing how it is that people are not bad to each other, but that's really not the point. The point is that in almost every instance of our lives, our social lives, we are, if we pay attention, in the midst of an almost constant, if subtle, caretaking.
Holding open doors. Offering elbows at crosswalks.
Letting someone else go first. Helping with the heavy bags. Reaching what's too high, or what's been dropped.
Pulling someone back to their feet. Stopping at the car wreck, at the struck dog. The alternating merge, also known as the zipper. This caretaking is our default mode and it's always a lie that convinces us to act or believe otherwise. Always.
(Mar. 2)
new depths
sometimes
still goofing
Back to a place where I would climb the trees as an 8 year old. Still goofing around.
the teachers are all around us
No better teacher
than the plant on my dresser.
We all yearn for light.
beware of the spread
Mooji
for the shy creator
the body of the world
Read the rest of Upon This Bounty, a miniature collage book I made in 2022.
poetry & photography
“I see poetry as the medium most similar to photography… or at least the photography I pursue. Like poetry, photography is rarely successful with narrative. What is essential is the ‘voice’ (or ‘eye’) and the way this voice pieces together fragments to make something tenuously whole and beautiful.”
Alec Soth
Marco Polo
I ran into my friend Mark in Banff while I was making my way out to Alaska. Completely randomly, he happened to be there with his family on a vacation. His family offered up their spare bed for a couple nights (the first real bed I’d had in a month) and fed me good. Mark’s soon-to-be Brother-in-law is a filmmaker and we geeked out over camera stuff together. Mark and I got to go on a nice long hike together, shooting photos, building cairns, and watching an 800lb grizzly sniff around across the stream. I’m forever grateful for the hospitality that his family offered me, and the company they provided on a long solo journey.