Tucumcari, New Mexico
April 2017
Can’t wait to go back and spend a little more time in one of the most photogenic towns I’ve ever seen. I’m working on a larger piece collecting photos and thoughts from my trip to New Mexico last year; it was transformative and I have a lot more to say about it.
Post Office, Mineral Wells, Texas.
November 2017.
Tonight Lauren performed at New Hampshire State University University of New Hampshire. Met lots of fantastic progressive young minds — also felt a little old. College kids are pretty young these days.
Other points of interest: ate the most amazing lobster roll ever (resisted urge to post food pic), drank delicious coffee (the caffeine is creeping back into my life), talked about gender and sexuality in a car while driving through a pine forest, ate “Mexican” food (sorry, New England, it’s just not your forté), and met lots of interesting people. And in case anyone’s wondering, I’m a little bit in love with Portland, Maine (and not just because of the seafood).
I have poetry in my bones, and it feels so good.
A couple of months ago I visited a dear friend in Oklahoma City. On the way back I stopped by a little spot ten miles west of nowhere near Edmond, Oklahoma…to see a tree. Supposedly this was no ordinary tree; I’d seen pictures of it, heard stories about people driving out of their way to see it — needless to say, I had to experience it for myself.
Except it turns out it was 1) after ten p.m. by the time I made it out there and 2) so, so cold. I tried to take a long exposure photo but the whole thing turned out to be completely out of focus and looked pretty awful.
A loss, right? Not really. As I stood there sipping my hot cocoa, chilled to the bone, looking at this little tree (a dogwood, maybe?) I felt this weird feeling of…well…of standing out in the middle of nowhere by myself but feeling anything but. There’s something to be said about sharing a spot with a whole bunch of people across space and time (some of whom you’ve never met, some of whom you have). Sharing space. It’s something we do every day, but I suspect we rarely think about. It got me thinking so much I’m devoting episode two of my podcast to it — but more on that later.
In the meantime, if you want to see some photos of the tree that don’t suck, check out geotagged photos on Flickr.
I made the illustration above because I was sad I didn’t get a good photo of the tree.
