The grief thief and the police

all the dark places you go

The life that one mourns that was never born. That was almost realized. No one breathed and no one died.

You aren't even aware of the time you wasted till it's already left and there is nothing you can do. No other life you could have lived, though you could have you just didn't know, you took it for granted and there is nothing left for no one except faint memories of 'oh yeah, remember when?' Yet you only say that in your head because you're too embarrassed and too sad to reveal what was it was, those previous possibilities. They are closed and nested and entombed.  

Was a long day but not much occurred too much to speak of but we miss you more than words convey. I can't believe how young I was. I can't believe how much I didn't understand. How much I would lose and never know. I mean I did know and understand but I couldn't articulate that in the face of death at thirteen. Do you know how the years go on and people and time just go on and on? That's what I didn't really understand. Not that I was thinking of the future. It's sometimes difficult to remember the details and intricateness. I thought it would come back to me eventually but my mind was just finding ways to survive not be crashed onto the shore. Not be broken and washed up as a carcass of loss. Though it's difficult to not relate to that now. The world is filled to the brim of endless tragedy and loss. You have your personal and you must bear witness to all that exists outside your slice of the universe that you can't control. The unhoused being driven into the abyss. The Palestinians being annihilated while the world tepidly raises their shoulders and then claps for those who say they are in service of supremacy of a nation state. The most morally bankrupt to choose a conception of land, nation, country, a controlling governing body to surveillance/penalize/dictate over a person or people. Yet that is much of the world. You would get that. I think a lot of the conservations we never got to have. Those I can miss the most. I have been so stressed and lost in a sense of being stuck in an aquarium at night that never closes and I never find the exit out nor remember the entranceway. I am just in the stream of conscious and what I admire the most of life are the things I cannot touch.

Happy birthday. I wish I could have seen you before the last on this day. I'm glad our life wasn't characterized by the ending of this song. I wish I could have seen you though but I understand why you couldn't believed you couldn't stay. If that had happened to me I wouldn't have known either. I will scan your books this year. Love forever, Little Bear

 

  I don't have anywhere else to share this with that it would mean anything but it is the 20th anniversary of when I began my Lightscapes series which was just an experiment in a photo workshop with Arno Minkkinen in August 2003 in Maine.

Our group went to a lake to photograph and a person let me borrow their Holga camera. It was a great day and I could even feel something was happening you know like when an artist gets an instinct about making something in the process it feels bigger than themselves, they are harnessing what cannot be forced but as if one where to walk into it. I remember Arno said the kids I photographed trusted me because I walked the water. Which I literally did all my clothes soaked walking into the lake but sometimes you must do those kinds of things and that it is worth some social awkwardness and discomfort especially when people trust and let you in, especially the most important subjects for one to truly earn their respect and trust is kids. It has always been the greatest honor when it has occurred and I have been extremely fortunate.

  Seeing the photos results the following day helped me find this lifeline in eventually the body of work that would be Lightscapes some years later when I was struggling photographically. It will always mean more to me personally than some experimental body of work that I don't know if others can surmise. I don't know if the personal translates through it's "artistic" appearance. I had to learn to rely on myself and some sort of feeling tethered toward intention and fate despite a great flaw of mine is fatalism. I don’t think my pictures reveal that layer of myself. I really love my work. I just wanted to say something because I want to claim what I love and my work brings me meaning and confirmation that being alive is worthwhile through all of it.