in the land of unending hot showers

 There is, in the corner of my mind, the inkling of sulfur at the edges of my nostrils, and the nostalgia of sky and rock and wind.  I spent nearly a month on the magical island of Iceland, and now, home for more than a month, I'm finally sifting through the experience.  It was something that words don't quite come close to describing.  As luck would have it, my camera broke the night before I departed for my trip, which I took as a good excuse to draw and write instead.  It's funny how we can memorialize experience through a camera lens, and how different memory operates in other forms of record keeping.  However, I couldn't help myself from using the poor quality camera on my phone, which was of no use to me except for my random flicks, as I had no service there.  Here are just a few of the odd images I gleaned from the streets and the land.

all that happens in the spaces between

There is no such thing as chance; and what seems to us merest accident springs from the deepest source of destiny.

~Friedrich Schiller

watermark me

"Remember, expect nothing and life will be velvet."

~Lisa Gardiner

contemplating the rose

I visited the SF Moma last weekend to see the Jay DeFeo exhibition before it ended.  It was sort of magical in a way that can't be described.  Afterwards, I took a break on the sunshine-concrete-rooftop spot, just around the corner from those unbelievable paintings.  This is what I saw.

yellow

Listening to Alvin Lucier and being completely blown away...  feels like window fog and goldenrod.

dated

Maybe because I'm faced with the imminence of aging more and more every day (as we all inevitably are), I've found some fascination with things from years ago.  Library books that must be pulled from storage, stamped with years before I was alive.  Photo envelopes that I discovered in my mom's closet on my visit back home... I'll scan some of those photos at some point.  It's odd, I'm nearly looking another year of life in the face, wondering how it has passed so quickly.  Will I hold the patina of yellowed paper and the nostalgia of the content inherent?  Will I find a relic in my life as such?

three year wait

Last year I visited Iowa in late December.  I hadn't seen snow in 2 years, since I'd moved to the Bay Area.  While most Midwesterners I know complain about the winter months and the hassles of dealing with the weather inherent, I miss it.  However, during my visit that year, it barely reached freezing and instead of snow I got rain.  I can't adequately express how disappointed I was.  I made my way back to Iowa this winter, fingers crossed that the December snow would hold out until I arrived in early January.  I eagerly anticipated snow angels, sledding, snowball fights and that smell of sweet snowy winter air hovering over icy laced fields in the open sky.  It was my heart's only wish.  And this year, my wish came true.  The joy I felt cannot be illustrated in the photos below, but they will serve as a reminder of the blissful moments I spent among that white, winter treasure.

the temporal tangible

I've been printing postcards in an attempt to support the continuation of snail mail.  A friend told me they received a post card in the mail recently and were surprised at how precious it seemed.  It suddenly struck me that these tangible objects, with tactile form, are still essentially temporary.  However, they are also rare instances in our lives that are more special because they lack the perfunctory effort of an email or text message.
Then I came across these lovely images I snapped one day riding my bike though Oakland.  A couple days later, they were painted over.  The temporal beautiful world.

white

Human behavior is incredibly pliable, plastic.

~Philip Zimbardo

blind-light