I honestly don't even know what to write anymore. To say that "a lot has happened..." since my last post is redundant. "A lot" is always happening, especially when you're not posting everyday, or every week, or even every month. There are a number of things that I've been wanting to write about for a while, but things have been lining up less and less. What I've really wanted to write about is body issues and beauty, because it is what I am perpetually dealing with. I say I want to write about it, but I have been writing about it for years; I just haven't constructed anything eloquent enough to use as an official post on my "official" website... that gets a dozen hits a week, compared to my tumblr's 200+, even though I post little to nothing to my Tumblr. Have I been harping on that? I feel like I've been harping. "Harping." I'm going to post some pics to my Tumblr just to make myself feel worse. Take that.
Last week we had a Sunday off together, so we headed to a spot in the world that supposedly had a lot of ghost towns. This particular spot was one which I have driven by dozens of times, a la hwy 395. I guess it could be defined as one of those spots that I put a pin in whilst speeding toward Carson City, Nevada, courting the second wife a decade+ ago. I often feel like I need to catch people up on my life's storyline, then I have to remind myself that no one cares. Oh well. It happened, so, deal with it, professionally. *Insert smiley face* 0_0. The first spot we hit was right on the road, surreally on the road, but locked off from access by a vehicle that isn't lifted or smaller and off-roady. Cricket, the Sube, got us close enough on a terrifyingly torn up dirt road (terrifyingly torn up for a Subaru [I miss my Jeep]). Have I been harping on how much I miss my Jeep?
The spot itself was less ghost town than I imagined. The half destroyed architecture may have been old? I don't really know. It looked more like a modern ghetto mining town that was abandoned than a hundred year old community that was abandoned. Aside from the obvious architectural anomalies, it was on posted private property (yes, we technically trespassed, which I hate), and the property itself was torn the fuck up, with "mines" dug all the fuck over the place. From a distance you can really tell the toll of the mining, evident in what seemed like thousands of little man made hills from excavated earth. There were a lot of antique looking mining structures, but something tells me that most of the holes in the ground are more modern than "abandoned" from the 1800s, similar to the Joshua Tree mines, lined with modern equipment amongst rusted out antique vehicle skeletons. It sells as an historical aspect of the wonderful world of "gold mining," but the reality is that people are still digging; people are still hoping to strike it rich, the easy way, which is insanely dangerous.
I really don't know where I'm going with this post. I wasn't really planning on writing anything, but I did want to post some photos with a little update, and I no longer have an internet connection at home, so I am at work, using the now precious internet connection. My phone also stopped working yesterday, leaving me completely locked out of the world outside of my little tiny living space and my little tiny family. Not all that bad, really, except I got the crazy drive to post something after leaving the Zen center yesterday, and my brief little tail end of a sesshin, in which I had what could be defined as an epiphany regarding, you guessed it, beauty and body image, but was lost forever because I couldn't get to my journal in time. The thought was something different, I think, but I'll have to settle to what I've been harping on for six or so years. Yes, more harping.
I guess I should address the title of this post. It has nothing to do with where I went while writing, so, I don't really know what it means anymore. There is the obvious life reference, which swiftly changes when you take on a family (growing family [nudge, nudge]). I work six days a week and am left with little to no creative venture. There are a precious few days off, in which we try to accomplish something. I don't get to the Zen center anymore, which was my staple of last year. I constantly feel like something is missing, but everything is simply what it is. I was asked to attend sesshin this last weekend, for a greater cause, but the truth is I missed it out there. The sits were rewarding, even though daylight savings made sure that by Sunday I was fucking exhausted, having to abandon plans to scout the Santa Monica mountains, then my phone stopped working, then I locked my keys in the car; wine; whine; sleep; work; write; repeat and fade.
While I have been writing about body image, sporadically, for a while, I began constructing something official back in December, whilst fighting a severer than normal depression and frustration that was going completely unnoticed because, harping, no one gives a shit. The argument was much simpler than "attitude is more important than attribute," but basically states the same thing: you will never be more beautiful than you are right now. This is a very broad statement, but at its base is absolute truth, in relation to what I am applying it to. This was all spurred by dealing with what I would describe as a beautiful human being, and girl, which I was attempting to shoot, but little actually got accomplished because she didn't like her current state; a state which I simply saw as beautiful. The argument stated that what I saw as beautiful was destroyed by the negativity and self hatred of the person involved: she didn't like how she looked because she didn't look how she used to look, but failed to realize that she would look back on how she looks now and wonder why she didn't love herself and truly appreciate how beautiful (aesthetically) she was. Actually writing that down makes me realize that it is a bit more complicated than I thought going into this paragraph; this paragraph that I hadn't planned on writing.
My rambling was inspired by specific events that were happening at the moment, but only elaborated on how I've felt pretty much my entire life. I see beauty in people, and want to capture the beauty that I see, but they are stuck on the list of things that they've created to fog that beauty. Id est, I'm too fat, too skinny, too ugly, too...whatever society or childhood conditioning has mind fucked people into obsessing over, most of which is absolutely stupid and useless. This has driven me absolutely insane, and it seems as though everytime I find someone who is so genuinely beautiful that I want to capture them, they end up hating themselves enough, right now, to completely destroy the beauty that I find. How do you employ a muse that hates themselves? I am not even necessarily talking about this girl, or that girl; it is a reoccuring fucking theme that can only be defined as human. Souls in modern society are not allowed to like themselves. They are constantly comparing and judging every fucking little fucking thing. Here I fucking am fucking harping.
Breathe.
I honestly have no idea if anything I write makes any sense anymore. One of these days I will be able to structure everything in a way that makes sense, instead of these accidental rants. Part of me has completely let go of the storyline, much less accomplishing anything significant with my life. What was I really accomplishing? I keep shooting, for whatever reason, but look at most of my work and think, "what am I doing?" I am completely obsessed with accomplishing something, but most, if not all, of my work is accompanied by a resounding, "what am I accomplishing?" I talk about people's obessions ruining the beauty that I see, but am still overwhelmingly consumed by my own obsession, placing extraordinary expecations on an ordinary life.
This particular day of shooting was accompanied by her coming to terms with the fact that she is just "rounder" now, which drives me to have that look on my face that says "are you fucking kidding me?" The absurdity of it all is overwhelming. I just see a beautiful human being. If you don't see that then stop looking, and I guess that also applies to the individuals involved. lol. I am simply capturing the beauty that I find in the world, whether the world likes it or not. What I really wish I had on this shoot was someone to shoot me shooting, so the world could see that in most of these images I was holding a two year old. That's a story. No one ever captures me, unless it is the rare occasion that I laid the camera down and someone grabbed it.
At the end of the day, I am stuck between being grateful that I have people in my life who have no idea how beautiful they are, and being frustrated with having people in my life who have no idea how beautiful they are. I wish people would just trust me when I told them that there was something there, whether they saw it or not, or whether or not I could even describe it. Just be you, really; that's the lesson: you are beautiful, so be you, right now. It doesn't get anymore beautiful than that.
She's pregnant (again, right?), only this time we've not only heard a heartbeat, but we've seen the little bugger kick its little legs and arms, so...
...yet another paradigm shift.
Aaaaaand my battery is dying, so I guess I'll wrap this ramble up. Any horrific grammatical errors will be corrected eventually.
