bear island

We booked a camping site a month or so ahead of time, hoping that we could take a day off work and go to the beach – so glad we made it happen. We had the whole island to ourselves, the best mac and cheese made over a camp stove, and a long, long morning walk on the beach. I am dreaming of getting back here before we move.

[Bear Island, Hammocks Beach State Park, all 35mm]

to say the names of things

"God is present and will be present. All of us have heard, or in some way experienced, a call. It may have been a voice in the night or a dawning awareness, a lifelong inclination or an epiphany impelling us to change how we live altogether. How we respond to that call is manifested in our lives as artists. I like to think that what we do and what we make are ways of saying to God, 'Here I am. I am present, too.'" [Mark Jarman, in an article in Image]

Listening to a lot of Hello Shark this weekend.

These—the perfect road trip snack.

[from a trip to Boston, earlier this year, Honeywell Pentax, 35mm]

on turning

My friend Heather, in her Boston apartment earlier this year.

And Joel Meyorwitz, answering the question: What do you look for in a photograph?

"It's a merger of what's inside your head and what's outside your eyes, and finding a way to synthesize that experience—because what's inside your head isn't something that you have predetermined you want to have. It's a notion of what's satisfying, what fills you up. I think about photographs as being full, or empty. You picture something in a frame and it's got lots of accounting going on in it—stones and buildings and trees and air—but that's not what fills up a frame. You fill up a frame with feelings, energy, discovery, and risk, and leave room enough for someone else to get in there. It's full because you're there, because you carried a lifetime of impulses with you that direct you toward the clear sky behind you. You don't know why, but you turn to it."

[Honeywell Pentax, 35mm]

and more, have our being

I spent the bulk of last week at Mepkin Abbey, in Monck's Corner, SC, just a half hour north of Charleston. I went to pray about my life, marriage, and vocation. I went also to rest, to write, to be alone long enough so that words can come to the wordless parts of me. I was surprised at how easily I slipped into the silence of the monastery, how right it felt to be alone and quiet for a few days. I walked away slow hours in the woods and gardens, spiraled through the labyrinth each morning, took at least two naps a day, read for a few hours in bed each night, and learned to listen for the bells calling us back to chapel for lauds, prime, terce. In many ways, it was more jarring to come back to the busyness of real life then to enter into the silence of the abbey.

"For I saw him and sought him; for now we are so blind and so unwise that we never seek God until out of his goodness he shows himself to us, and if he graciously lets us see something of himself, then we are moved by the same grace to seek with great longing to see him more fully; and thus I saw him and I sought him, I had him and I wanted him. And it seems to me that this is, or should be, our usual way of proceeding."

(Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love)

h-mooning

We settled on going to Joshua Tree for our honeymoon back in May, and I honestly don't think we even considered any other option. It was always: "Let's go to Joshua Tree."

We stayed in the Saguaro Hideaway Guesthouse, which was located five-minutes from the entrance to the park, and five-minutes from the one-block town of Joshua Tree. You can only access the house by dirt roads, which take you up and out of the valley a bit, to a secluded spot overlooking the mountains. The sun would rise around 5am each morning and strike pink light across the horizon and through the large windows into our house. We somehow never really changed time-zones, and ended up going to bed at 8pm and waking up at 5am with the sun. I wish we could do that every day.

We didn't really do all that much, in the best sense; we were usually either eating, sleeping, or hiking. We drank a lot of Joshua Tree Coffee Company's coffee, and ate the most satisfying cheese and egg bagels from Natural Sisters Café. Joshua Tree is sort of a quirky place: lots of climbers and hiker-types traveling through, and a handful of hippies who have settled there for good. It's quiet, especially in November, I'm guessing.

Our longest hike, along the Willow Hole Trail, took us deep into the strange silence of the rock formations. There is, of course, not a lot of visible life in the desert, or at least, that which would be apparent on the surface. So, it was always surprising to be walking along and suddenly hear a few birds chirping in a juniper bush, or see a handful of ants making their way into a hole, or catch a glimpse of a coyote far and away up a rock formation. Something about the desert landscape forces attentiveness, and maybe that's why I like it so much.

On our last day, we travelled back to Los Angeles. We splurged and stayed at the Ace Hotel, and all I can think about is the shampoo and the drinks we shared on the rooftop bar and how ridiculous it was that every person that worked there looked like an Urban Outfitters model, even (especially) the bell boy who took us to our room.

Our favorite places in Los Angeles: The Last Bookstore (huge, wonderful bookstore with a great art books section, just a few blocks from the Ace Hotel), Sqirl (long lines and sorrel pesto rice bowls for breakfast, which were so good we went twice), and lots of home goods stores, including: General Store, Individual Medley, and Reform School. I don't think we actually bought anything, but just perused around all the pretty things. And at Proof Bakery we shared the best earl gray tea cakes.

A honeymoon is such a particular time: the sudden quietness in the wake of the wedding, and the expectancy of a whole life together in front of you. There's so much to take in. And there is something, too, about the realization that you are about to spend a life with another person, and suddenly your love feels small, insignificant, as if it has much growing to do. Which it does, and that growing is demanding and magnificent all at once.

[all Honeywell Pentax, 35mm film]

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pace e bene

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"Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places." 

(Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities)

Some photographs from that first day to myself in Rome: the Pantheon, Giolliti, Piazza Navona, wine and bruschetta in Campo Dei Fiori, San Luigi dei Francesi (Caravaggio's The Calling of Saint Matthew), Sant'Agostino (Caravaggio's Madonna di Loreto), sitting on the steps of the Capitoline Museum, etc. Those first few impressions from wandering into a new city are always somehow unique and wonderful.

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we think of you when we look at him

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Around Italy recently: the streets of Orvieto, San Damiano (the convent of the Poor Clares), the Duomo in Orvieto, the Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi (where Giotto's frescoes of the Life of St. Francis are located, as well as St. Francis' grave), Eremo delle Carceri (Saint Francis' hermitage), and Monte Subasio (the slope where Francis first retreated).

"Be praised, my Lord, for all your creation
and especially for our Brother Sun,
who brings us the day and the light;
he is strong and shines magnificently.
O Lord, we think of you when we look at him.

Be praised, my Lord, through Sister Moon 

and the stars; in the heavens.

You have made them 

bright, precious and beautiful.

Be praised, my Lord,
for our Brothers Wind and Air
and every kind of weather
by which you, Lord,
uphold life in all your creatures."

(St. Francis, The Canticle of Creation)

not to grasp

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This is the convent in Orvieto that I have the privilege of staying in this month. It seems like a dream living in such a beautiful space and walking past this little guy every day, and all I can think to say is that I am grateful.

A few other things:

Agnes Martin at the Tate.

Italy has changed my perspective on eggplant. Sliced thinly, grilled, and topped with balsamic, fresh mozzarella, and basil—few things are better.

Also, these words from Father Martin, which I scribbled down awhile back, and which are necessary words today as I meet with certain disappointments:

"We are not to grasp at that which we desire, rather to extend open hands, the palms turned upwards in prayer."
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iceland ii.

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I think what surprised me the most about this country was how quickly and drastically the landscape changes, from pseudocraters to hot springs to waterfalls to black sand beaches to glacier lagoons to volcanoes. 

We worked our way around the island clockwise, starting north, before making our way back around to the more crowded southeastern edge. I liked the quieter and isolated fjords and peninsulas of the north much better; though after being in some of the most remote areas, there was always something relieving about returning to a small town, or seeing another car, or even just a farm in the distance. 

I will miss the lace curtains and trinkets in every windowsill, rhubarb jam spread on waffles, Olafur and Anna and the view from Berunes, skyr tart, that enchanting sense of isolation, Adult Jazz and Panda Bear on repeat, and endless time with Derek. I will not miss the smell of sulfur or staying in crowded hostels.

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