Tucumcari, New Mexico

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.

Live Free or Die

81A738F9-683B-4A89-9709-D1802E342E85Tonight 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.

 

#TreeCult

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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.