Photographs and 'A Coney Island Of The Mind'

I go to Coney Island in as many seasons as I can, to capture the land of my imagination on camera. The people are as vibrant as the amusements.

This past trip made me think of a book of poems by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, A Coney Island of the Mind.

Here's a small snippet from #21

At a certain age

her heart put about 

searching the lost shores

And heard the green birds singing

from the other side of silence

Back From Ireland, Holding on to Then, Now.

I'm back from a most beautiful trip to Ireland and the sun and blue and cool air have, so far, followed me home. I felt lucky there because I saw blueberry skies when everyone said I should expect grey and rain. The incredible expanse of green didn't quite follow me back. The ground is silver and tar here. But the blue did. It did.

I hope the calm I felt there also stays. Spending that many hours on country road drives, climbing mountains, or standing at the foot of the shore breathing and thinking and being, everything wide and open, looking out, feeling as if all I saw could sail the dirt if it wanted to, it made me feel more peaceful than I have in a long time.

There came a moment, towards the end of my travels, when I realized I wanted to go home before the trip was officially over, which is a very rare occurrence for me. Usually, I have to be dragged away kicking and screaming.  But, this time, I didn't want to dig through suitcases for the shirt I had forgotten or sleep on the old, foreign sheets anymore. I wanted to be home and walk the familiar streets and hardwood floors of my real life. And it was the most amazing feeling, to want to return to all I have, but hold on to the calm I felt. I felt it was possible to do that then and I feel it is possible to that now and however that changes in the rush and crowd and squeeze of this real life, I'll try to remember how I believed in the possibility that it could be done.

Beyond that, I bought a fancy new camera and I loved experimenting. I'm looking forward to learning how to really use it in the coming months and years. These are a few of my favorite photographs of Ireland.

The beach in Connemara

Sky sparkle in Clifden

The Cliffs of Moher

Connemara National Park at the top of Diamond Hill

Sunset in Spanish Point

A sheep who posed just for me. 

 

Embracing Imperfection

Today, I read this post from Jamie Catto on the Intimacy of Imperfection and felt as if I had been set free.

Catto suggests that it's not imperfection that is unattractive to others but the shame that comes from these imperfections.

These past few weeks (months? years? lifetimes?), I have struggled with, obsessed over, the idea of perfection.  Most recently, I've been overly concerned about it in the online space. I've felt as if I have to constantly revise myself. Every sentence, every word.  I've been very worried that the 'me' I'm presenting to the world is not the right kind of me. With this blog, my twitter and Facebook and email accounts, I have been given too many opportunities to delete, edit, and second-guess. 

How refreshing to step back, to understand that it's not the 'terrible' me I have to hide (for I am quite terrible) but the fear behind it that I have to shed.

So, I'll start small.  I'll start with a photograph on this (not-so) Wordless Wednesday.  There I was at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens with my point and shoot camera, pretending to be a photographer, trying to capture this dragonfly.  There I was, whining to myself that I did not have a good enough camera with an expensive lens, that I did not have an art background, years of photography classes, or even a basic knowledge of light.  There I was, crabby and pissed and stubborn but determined to take a picture of these delicate wings.

And what happened when I, finally, after snapping two hundred photos, captured that dragonfly in the right position, without it being blurred or shadowed or obstructed or just plain bad?

There was a freaking sign in the background.

To imperfection.  I start here.

New York Young- Photo Inspiration for Writers

It should be no secret (and it isn't now) that I discreetly photograph people I find interesting in order to inspire character. Look at her Converse boots!  Her hair!  I love her and I do not know her!  


I store these pictures in a folder labelled 'characters'.   Since I snap them quickly, half of them are blurred, most of them are faceless, and some of them are of a single boot (I have a thing for boots) or the perfect bracelet that I think a character might wear.

So, you can imagine, when I discovered this beautiful photo project from New York Photographer Amy Touchette which features outstanding portraits of New York City teenagers, I was like a kid in a candy store, devouring these professional portraits like I had just received a passport to character inspiration nation. 

I find these photographs incredibly inspiring and I wanted to share them here for anyone writing teen characters.

According to the Cara Buckley of the New York Times:

Ms. Touchette shot most of the photos in summer 2011, prowling the streets of Manhattan and Williamsburg looking for adolescents who were, in her words, "visually urban" -- colorful, slightly attitudinal, and the clear products of New York.

Since I don't have permission to share Touchette's New York Young project on the blog, please clickety click here if you're looking for a little character inspiration.

Where do you find character inspiration?

Forever Guessing

I live in a city I love very much but it can feel loud, crowded, plastered in concrete. Sometimes I am desperate for relief. I need to see some green.

I don't have a car and escaping to nearby quiet can turn into an epic journey. A 26 mile trip to my home town, with all its various modes of transport and transfers takes just over 2 hours.  Technically, a certain Kenyan can run there faster (Geoffrey Mutai's fastest marathon time is 2 hours, 3 minutes, and 2 seconds.)

So, in an effort to find the nature I crave, I have come to accept the travel time.  I wait on oppressively hot subway platforms, stick to greasy subway seats.  I take the Sunday Times and read it cover to cover.  I devour entire books.  I make it happen.

Today Tyler and I journeyed one and a half hours to Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx to hike its trails.  We crossed the breezy fields, passed a cricket team clad in crisp, white uniforms.  A haze of hamburger smoke hovered over three generation family barbecues. We made it to the hare and tortoise marked trail, crossed over the highway (yes, in New York City, hikes involve crossing highways) and found complete solitude. Quite possibly because no one else in their right minds would take a hike...in the Bronx...in a wet-blanket soup of weather.  But I am nothing if not determined.

As we approached the end of our here we go loop-de-loop, we were greeted with the best kind of sound. Not the call of birds or the scamper of deer but a sound unique to a city full of life.  In a mess of trees and raspberry bushes and runaway black-eyed-susans in pink: a band bursting with song.

I don't know any other city in the world that can boast hiking trails complete with live concerts.  It's why I love New York.  It's what keeps me forever guessing, never knowing what I'll find.

Last stop on the 1 train

Hazy cricket

The Hare and Tortoise Trail

Sun sparkle through these skinny trees

Proof New York City is not entirely concrete

Surprise!

Obanos, Spain

It was the round-abouts that sent us veering.  You couldn't drive the miles on all that newly paved gray without coming to the ease of a circle. To go straight required taking the bend of a half-moon and sometimes it felt that having to curve at all meant drifting away entirely.

So we followed sturdy signs to empty villages, parked on silent streets, watched backpackers jab the pavement with poking metal poles.  They travelled El Camino de Santiago, or the way, we later heard it called by the Canadians who rolled their eyes, believing that the trek had become too popular because of a film we'd never heard of.  I made a note to find the movie, to see it, to understand what was so compelling that people were desperate to take the ancient pilgrimage through a place we thought we'd simply stumbled upon.

Everything in Spain felt vaguely yellow and grey but Obanos was lemon, steeped in sun, hung out to dry against all the blue above.  It was a version of the Old West, hazy and vivid at the same time, with the smoke of dirt under our feet but, no, it wasn't dirt at all, just hot, smooth, yellow stone that looked like dirt that had been kicked up under hooves and there was the clip-clop sound of nothing or was it the swing of a saloon door but, of course not, because Obanos is stern masonry and brick and one medieval bell-tower that did not ring its fists at the sky.

We walked so as not to disturb.  Peeked around the painted angles of each home. Passed the lipstick red blossoms in thick clay pots.  Dared not follow the creep of technicolor vines.  There was just one home in rounded, Easter pink.  It's arched windows and painted shutters slipped down the slope, made way for lush, eager green.

In my mind we saw no one or we did but it was like looking through.  Like having to take a turn to go straight.  Like knowing you were somewhere that never saw you.

For more Spain posts, go here. 

A Child, A Woman, A tree

I've mentioned before that I don't know anything real about photography. I only have a point and shoot camera. I don't know how to use a flash so I avoid it at all costs. And I have no idea how to edit a photo once it's been taken.  But I love, love to take photos because they help me see the world so I can imagine it better when I sit down to write.

Most of the time, when I see a photo I took, I don't like it. I think, it doesn't look the way it really looked.  I often find that dissatisfying. Very rarely do I think, this is exactly how it looked.

While in Spain, we discovered that I love to take pictures of three very distinct things:

1. Children
2. The elderly
3. Trees

So...I give you three photos that I think look the way they really looked. My medley.  A child. A woman. A tree.

On the Tracks

I saw these objects on different days (weeks apart, actually) and at different train stations.

It startled me, how similar they were. How similar they are.

A lost story (a book.)  An abandoned heart.

Through The Trees

It's been a warm winter in New York City.  Too warm, some argue.  We were blanketed with white only once and it melted hours later.  March has, so far, refused to live up to its fate. It has come in like a lamb. 

Yesterday, I left the office in the middle of the day to read.  Maybe a little reckless of me.  But.  Well.

I sat at Madison Square Park and was struck by all you could see through the trees.  It is the best thing about winter.  The view it affords.  With trees in bloom, I would not be able to see the Empire State Building, the clock tower, or building tops dipped in gold.

Later that evening, I walked to Bryant Park before attending a late night recording session for work. And again, I could see the New York Public Library and buildings soaring into sky just before the sun dropped. 

I'll try to remember the relief of this winter, next winter, when I'm stuck inside, when I'm shivering while waiting for a train.  I'll try and look up and remember that bare trees allow us to see so much more.

Celebrating The Fish

I've been feeling 'meh' lately, lonely, disconnected from people, frazzled, a little over-programmed.  My life has become very structured.  A full work-day, then time at the gym five days a week. I return home, cook, eat later than I would like (around 9:30pm), write something, anything, sleep, repeat.  Through this I've been planning a wedding, force-feeding agents one novel, researching another.  

It's getting to be a bit much.  I miss people.  I miss lounging.  Sleeping.  I'm re-evaluating.  Everything.

A few weeks ago, I decided I would plan a short trip to DC to rejoin the living and visit my friend Rebecca (better known as Becky.  Sometimes known as the Fish.)

She expects a blog post out of it.  As she should. One of the first and most dedicated readers of this blog, she deserves one.

We biked through Rock Creek Park. (You didn't expect me to go on a trip and not take a photo of the trees, did you?)

We listened to live jazz.

And fell in love with a giant teddy bear singer named TQ.

She cooked Indian food.

Then put together a puzzle while I organized the pieces by color. Puzzles are, uh, not my strong suit.

As we killed a bottle of wine, my brain in a fuzz, I remembered something random.

"Once you told me you loved Bette Midler and then we listened to her albums on repeat. This is when I knew I adored you."

"Tell everybody that," she requested.

So I am.  

Puppies and puppies and puppies, oh my!

We now take a break from our regularly scheduled blogging to...

LOOK AT PUPPIES!

(Just so you know, all dogs in my world, regardless of age or size, are referred to as puppies.)

These were taken in the benching area of the 136th Westminster Kennel Club Dog Puppy Show.

Not sure if you can see from the angle of the photo but this dog is about 3 of her.

 

This Samoyed, Hayley, had the softest fur. I almost stole her.



Long day for the Saint Bernard.

His name is Benson.

Don't mess.

This dog can only take so many cuddles. Bored to death of 'em huh?

Long day for the Golden Retriever.

Toto dog being groomed for the Terrier Group.

I realize she's not a puppy but she was sitting on the grooming table.



Reflection

I have a strange fascination with the Gowanus Canal which runs just east of here.  I think it is beautiful.  Sadly, it's also toxic.

The community has rallied on the canal's behalf and it is now on a long and slow journey to be restored.

I wandered there today to think.  About a lot of things.  There is a lot weighing heavily on my mind right now. 

I left feeling hopeful.  That what is broken, might be fixed.