Holocene

We are not simple. Sometimes things can penetrate the simple cover we put over ourselves and stir what is deep in us. I keep watching this video. I like Bon Iver, a lot actually, and this is my favorite song off of this album. But it is the video that dug into me. When I first saw it I kept thinking the boy in the video reminded me of Henry. Today I realized that it wasn't Henry that I was seeing in this video, it was me.

We live in these enclosed machines that walk around and see what is around us through what amounts to windows. Like cars on two feet. I move through life much of the time like a spectator. I have distinct memories of being so confused by what happened around me. people. relationships. friends. enemies. family. strangers.  I remember strongly feeling that the world would someday throw me off of it, and I had no idea how to hold on. I was desperate to somehow interact with what was outside of me. I still am. Like this boy who sees the water and skips a rock across it. Interact. Make it move. Affect it. Make it a part of you. Classify it. Know its name. Step up to the waterfall and raise your hands. Be a part of it. Make it a part of you.

I spent a while alone today. Its a rare privilege... I spent three hours alone, two of which I spent in the backyard lying down first on the grass and then in Henry's fort with Chaucer, who somehow managed to get himself up there with me.  And I thought, and listened. I think the whole taking pictures thing for me is to somehow internalize what is outside of me. To take it with me and make it part of who I am. I want to know who I am. I can't find it in the people around me. Honestly, I have no idea who they really are. Even my own kids are growing in ways that I don't fully understand, seeing the world in ways that I don't, or can't. I need connection. I have a really hard time finding that connection in conversation with people. I am not good at that kind of thing.

I guess I see people the way the boy sees that ocean. Throw a rock in, make it react, make it a part of you. Beyond that... I'm not sure. Even the relationships I have with my own family, who I hold very close, seem to slide sideways and slip away sometimes. And as effectively as I can, I gather them back and hope for the best.

I need to breathe and be a part of what is around me. I need to receive and give with same motion. I need hand holds...security. To know deep down who I am and to see it reflected in what I do and surround myself with. Like the boy, who by the end of the video lays back and digs his hand into the black sand. To know who I am, and where I am and what that has to do with me. I think that boy is cradled there. Held up by the black sand under him.

This blog, my writing, is not just what I see, its who I am, told in pictures and words. Its my eye that is seeing these things and then taking it, and finally retelling it here, hoping that some of you will know that much more about me. Or maybe its so I can know me that much more.