fun with photos

woke up this morning - at 5 - after what must have been an incredibly deep sleep. don't remember any dreams, though i know that something was going on in there, i just know it.

had some nice chat time with anne and some nice cuddle time with the kitten who is now pacing about and trying to help me type by pushing her soft little face under my thumbs. seriously, Street, there don't need to be that many spaces between words.

but, something that did occur to me, finally, is the scanner, that modern marvel of technology. so, now that i have my new page, after having deleted the other one in a moody drunken snit (which has passed as moods and alcohol do)(originally spelled 'moddy drunked'), i can (and shall spend the morning doing so) add pictures of my life before all of the craziness hit. this happies me muchly.

it is, i think, somewhat telling that there just aren't that many pictures of me from the last 12 years. partly i discovered that i had issues hanging out with folk who only wanted to look at old photo albums and take pictures instead of doing things, and then there was that guy on the Seine a million years ago who tried to tell me that he had no memories without pictures. he did take a picture of me, sitting on a bench, all gray stone and sky and air dressed in black with a notebook, looking every bit the wandering american girl looking for the right indie coming of wisdom film. he upset my reverie on an odd day wherein the only solace i needed at that moment i had found.

i remember him vividly, skinny, brown, Algerian. a man with a country and no nation, being french, but not really because of the nature of colonization and cultural bias. i remember he seemed lost, felt lost, out of place, travelling, looking, holding memories long enough to make them stand still. he had a nice voice and wasn't all that pushy. just bad timing or the wrong question. he would have been better off just taking the picture when i didn't notice. but he wanted interaction. he didn't want to do as i was doing, separating myself from people so that i could step back and see the world for a moment, look at it and try to tell what had changed, how i was to be afterwards. at 16 there is much of that to be had, at least there was for me. i never understood the rationale behind adults telling us that we didn't understand that we were changing, we wouldn't understand for years. i wondered if they remembered as much as they said that they did. it did not engender trust in adults. i knew perfectly well that all was different. every day something was new. i didn't know how to make it a part of me or my life, but i knew that it was changing. and i dove into it with speed that would make a cheetah blush.

it was good. i am glad for it. i do not know what will happen next. i do not have to. i am old enough to not have a plan and to be okay with that.

i am happy and a little bit wierded out to go through these old photos. to see a face that i know is what i carried with me, what i still carry with me, and not to recognize it, not to remember seeing it in the mirror or putting makeup on it, or being willing to accept what other people saw. i forget how mutable things are and have been - the subtle shifts of light that turn blue eyes green or brown or turquoise. the set of the face that makes it seem so removed or placid or angry or pleased. it is not a different face, rather a different set of filters through which it is seen.

my coffee is now cold, and there is fresh to be had. i have many more places to look for photos and scan them in. it will be a good morning and a good day. too gray to move about, too blanketed not to.

Thoughts on the walk to work

Who am I?

I am a creature who floats in and around the world, watching the sun change the color of things all day long, leaving me serene with the coming of night.

I hear the birds and watch the faces of passersby. Critters claim my undivided attention. Moving water commands me to stop and listen, to study the colors of it as it passes rocks, grass, floating bits of debris.

Bridges hold endless fascination for me. I observe cars and their drivers, buses and their passengers.

The stoplight is a never-ending succession of individuals hiding themselves in motion and blinking lights.

Entering the doors of work, I become a part of something, of the smell and feel of books, of the words pored and suffered over and bound into some barely controllable space.

I am undefined and free from structure, autonomous in my responsibilities.

Out of my purse comes, as it must, the length of blue fabric attached to a card, defining me as Staff.