Tuesday, May 24, 2016

building paper bridges...




Chaos has descended upon us.  The world is turning too fast  and we hold on tight hoping not to fall.

We are surrounded by long list of to-dos: things to book, things to buy, things to sign, things to find, .... they fall around us and weigh us down like heavy rain on our clothes.

We build  castles of cards that  regularly tumble down, and we pick them up, and they tumble down, and we do it again, moving forward, slowly building paper bridges towards an imaginary  ship that will take us to the promised land. That place we have imagined, that place we talk about as if we knew it, that life we have been promised, the story we have yet to write.

Meanwhile I feel like I'm making the whole thing up.

The children are impatient. They want the adventure to being.  They are wearing their travel boots and their visions of wonderland  and wondering what is keeping us all.

The parents are tired, snapping. Five am eyes wide open mechanically  reciting  the to-do  lists as if it was a prayer.

Tensions run high from anticipation of the short-term chaos.

We are about to jump off a moving train mid-sentence, and my heart breaks just a little for the stories we won't get to finish.

The world keeps turning.... this world set to  carry on without us

Thursday, May 19, 2016

When in Rome.... December family self portrait

***
The family self portrait  project started in January 2011. 
I take one portrait of the whole family, myself included, once a month.  
In late 2013 a "ghost" writer joined the initiative and now each photo is accompanied by a poem.
In 2015 the kids started collaborating and introducing their own ideas
...the project has a life of its own

also,
Every family should do this. It's an amazing record of the little things that matter


To see previous months click on the links below:


***
2016

Monday, May 16, 2016

Permanently temporary





I’ve been living in this skin so long it feels hard to shed.

Yet it slides right off me.

                                                          No resistance. 



I’m like a perfume.
A passing smell,
a memory, …
         even when I’m still here.




Permanently temporary with nothing to anchor me down.




I’m a good party, a warm summer drink...

That thing in the tip of your tongue you just can’t name.

A song you can only recall the chorus to.

                                                 An echo. A déjà vu.


                                                                   ...Both bittersweet and irrelevant.


                                      

A feather in the wind.

Permanently temporary.