July is thick with humidity. Work (I am on contract as a copywriter until the end of this month) is a spinning wheel of absurdities. And I’ve been drinking too often. All of these truths swirl to create a blinding hazy microclimate right around my head. I recall things slightly incorrectly. I ache to form new ideas but they slip off the sides of me.
Anyone who says they aren’t impacted by this heat hasn’t been paying close enough attention, and sometimes, I think, I should try paying less.
In lieu of my art practice, I do simple, domestic activities. I (try to) wake early. I go for a run across fields outside of town. I water plants. I fold clothes. I keep cool. I long to sit on the porch. I sweep, I mop, I wipe down countertops. I drive all over. I manage recycling bins and air flow. I grocery shop. I cook. I work because I’ve committed to it, work because soon I don’t want to work for a while. I observe and observe myself observing.
Relentlessly, John Berger comes to mind:
A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself. Whilst she is walking… or whilst she is weeping… she can scarcely avoid envisaging herself walking or weeping.
I still make photographs, but open-ended ones, thinking not one bit about a project. I photograph Ryan with a vintage Polaroid I purchased from a Craigslist seller weeks ago, an older man named Hal, who said “good luck with it.” I photograph myself with my digital camera in the reflection of my car, a color palette of primary colors, red pants, blue sky, yellow bra. It reminds me of the first day of elementary school. I wonder if I should go back there and walk around and of course photograph there because it’s all I’m ever wanting, relentlessly. I long for people to photograph, for more strangers and more friends.
Flip through the last several entries of my journal and find this one:
6/10 -
I saw a fat fly buzzing against the window, and trapped it between the window panes by opening the bottom pane all the way up. Ten minutes later I decided I felt bad that the fly would die by ramming itself into the glass toward the sky and trees and mountains wondering what invisible shield was stopping it, so I shifted the window slightly, deciding that if it wanted to find the opening, it would. I felt that in a way, I could be this fly.
Meanwhile
Current read: Re-reading parts of Inferno by Eileen Myles; specifically the part called ‘Drops’ where they take a bus to Marlboro in a failed attempt to get work picking apples.
Current listen: “Birdseye” by Babehoven
Current fixation: Sudden and vivid memories of my elementary school playground