family

Merry Christmas.

of time and the city

Just saw a trailer for Terence Davies’ latest Film, Of Time and the City. It looks like a documentary masterpiece, where Davies returns to his hometown of Liverpool, creating both a love song and a eulogy to it. As described in a review, “it is a response to memory, reflection and the experience of losing a sense of place as the skyline changes and time takes it’s toll. Terence Davies returnes to his native liverpool and to his film making roots to caputure a sense of the City today and its influences on him growning up in the late 40’s and early 50’s.”

Go and watch this trailer! I hate that WP won’t let me embed anymore but am working out the snafus with that. As I have been spending a better portion of the past year looking into my past and material from long ago, it is wonderful to see an award winning documentary doing just that. I can’t wait to go see how Davies achieves this bringing back of the past and meshing it with the future. I have been sitting at a standstill within my work for the past couple of months of so, but after see a trailer like this and looking at work such as John Folson [below image], I am finally beginning to get energized and excited again.

is this freedom?

Stumbling across my old journals from Peru last summer, I found my entry from when I got stuck in Andahualas en route to Cuzco, a small dot on very selective maps that cannot be accessed by any place other than a long long bus ride. While there, I found myself at Lake Pacucha, the only person around for miles as I had to walk quite a ways to reach it. I sat by the lake and watched a storm blow through a mountain range in the distance.

On June 29, 2008, I wrote the following:
I felt liberated in a way that I didn’t know existed. I had no specific plans, responsibilities, or anyone to talk to or tell where I am going. I wish that I could live my life with this sense of freedom, yet know that once I return to Allie, my mom, and back to reality, living entirely for the pleasure of myself will be nearly impossible. And while that saddens me, it it also met with great excitement to get back to the familiar.

I have been writing about the familiar within my thesis for several months now, and have recently hit a wall that frustrated me and made me want to quit. I have been grappling with this sense of familiarity and what it means to me, growing exhausted every time I try making something new, dissatisfied with its lack of clarity. But maybe I will never find this clarity. Maybe that is part of what I am trying to define, the undefinable and its shifting journey. I sat by that lake feeling completely alone, clinging to the thought of seeing home in a few weeks, and now that I am home and very far removed from that seemingly different life, I want to escape once more. So maybe familiarity is impossible. But I am still plagued with this one question, is this freedom?

Mundanity

Driving back to campus, it is another foggy Sewanee morning.

if this lady were a car

you never know what you will find

looking through some old photos, I ran across this picture of Barney in Peru?!
It make me realize that you really never do know what you will find in unexpected places.

video test