“Come home”
Leave a comment
Tag Archives: photography
You Have Brown Eyes But You Can Still Watch The World Cup With Me. Hey Infinity, #35
1. How many times is too many times? How much is too much? How vague is too vague?
2. You know your life’s exciting when you find yourself researching how to keep your houseplants watered so they don’t die when you leave them for an extended period of time. My babies!
3. Maybe you’re not bored but boring.
4. So, the World Cup is pretty cool, eh? #American
5. I wonder if I’m annoying my apartment neighbor by playing Sondre Lerche’s Bad Law over and over and over…. oh well.
6. I get it, you have opinions. About everything. And you’re very outspoken. And you hate that other people have opinions. Because they’re always wrong. Or offensive. Or politically incorrect. Maybe you should just get off the internet, because sharing all of these articles and making virtual support groups for offended people is not going to solve anything. Or maybe you’re just bored otherwise?
7. He has brown eyes. Of course he does.
8. People on Instagram totally take some of those photos with like real cameras, right? It’s ok, you can tell me!
9. If you can go outside and look up and see blue sky, and if you can go to the grocery store and buy strawberries at any month of the year, you’re fortunate. Please feel fortunate, for me. The gray-sky, berry-less lady. Thanks.
10. Wake up in the middle of the night and smile to yourself and go back to sleep.
mental image
I don’t have photographs of any of the most beautiful moments of my life. At the time, I either didn’t have a camera or didn’t believe I should take a photo of that moment or both. Now all I have are beautiful memories, beautiful photographs in my head of you looking at sunlight reflecting off a lake or you laughing at me or her and him and me creating a semi-circle of friendship in the middle of a smattering of drunk people at a party. Sometimes I wish I had pictures of those moments. Sometimes I understand why other people want to take pictures of everything, every moment. But there’s only so much storage space on an SD card, only so much room on the walls of your home or bedroom or staircase to hang photographs. Memories blur and fade but they can still be much more powerful than any attempt a camera or photographer can make at recording a moment in time.
And maybe in a year I won’t remember what it was like to watch you watch the sunrise. Maybe I’ll forget what my feet looked like and felt like covered in dirt and sand from Lake Huron after a long day of shoe-less trekking. I’ll forget, and you’ll forget, and my children or great-grandchildren will never see the photograph that I hung only on the walls of my mind.
But so many other moments have been forgotten. Cemeteries are full of those who watched the sun rise and set over the centuries; full of people who didn’t feel the need to snap a picture or open Instagram to capture something they felt was beautiful or important. They just lived it, just watched, just appreciated the moment and let it slip, keeping that photograph in their mind until another moment took its place.
waging a war
Here’s a question for you: What are you most afraid of?
Me? Not the dark, or heights, or strangers. I’m afraid of living the wrong life.
I’m afraid that I’ll take a job in San Francisco, or Los Angeles, because it’s in San Francisco, or Los Angeles, and I’m afraid I’ll be satisfied with doing a job that isn’t satisfying, and, therefore, living a life that isn’t satisfying.
Maybe me saying this negates all my worries. Maybe I’m waging a war that hasn’t happened yet; that won’t.
Maybe what I’m most afraid of is not being able to find it, the job I always assumed was waiting for me, somewhere. I still believe it’s out there, I just don’t know how to find it, where to look. I’m afraid I’ll miss it, pass over some link on the internet, or walk by the man wearing a puffy winter coat (I’m imagining this will take place in Chicago, in the winter, of course.) who could make it all happen.
Then again, I feel like if I can’t find what it is I’m looking for in San Fran or LA or wherever I end up, I’ll just make it. I’ll make my dream job. I honestly believe it’s possible.
This is my war, my battle. My I-just-graduated-college-and-have-to-find-a-job battle. I’m off into the real world (because people tell me the real world is a real thing), yet refusing to let the real world happen to me the way I’ve always expected it to attempt to.
And yet here, at the end of this thought, I’m still left where I was when I began a few sentences back. The war is still waging, the fear is still real, and there’s no one-liner that can end it.
Home Depot and Other Things You’ve Never Done Before, Hey Infinity #24
1. Take what you can get. Something is definitely better than nothing.
2. It all depends on proximity and timing.
3. People are never going to act the way you assume they will. If you stop expecting people to live up to your expectations, you’ll be a lot happier, and live a better life.
4. Nothing lasts forever. Including friendships/relationships. People leave, or move on, and it’s ok. Even if you KNOW that the person you’re spending time with won’t be in your life for too long, you should still be happy and be with them and treat them like a great human being who you’re happy to be with, for however long you’ll be in each other’s lives.
5. Do something today you’ve never done before.
6. Seriously, I am super funny. I just wish you could understand how funny I am. I am so funny.
7. “Smile! Don’t look so depressed, it’ll be OK!” – guy outside the drug store, to my retreating self. Uh, two things. First of all, no one smiles all the time, so why should I be smiling as I walk out of a rite aid? Second, rite aid does not carry muffins, so why the hell would I be smiling/not looking depressed as I walk out of my local rite aid at nine in the morning, muffin-less?!
8. I’m (re-)learning French on this super cool app I just got on my phone (Duolingo). Je suis une femme blanche. So useful! I’m off to France!
9. Do people really listen to the radio these days? I don’t believe it. Who are you?
10. The closest anyone can come these days to visiting another planet is to go to any Home Depot late at night. Just try it. This sort of thing you just have to experience first-hand.
Instagram is to infinity, Vol. 6
A few days ago I woke up and somehow almost immediately decided that a good way to become a more active Instagram-er would be to take one picture every hour — sort of a documentary of a day in my life, in pictures. It went well… for a few hours, anyway.
“8am #adayinpics”
A hotter-than-normal Michigan summer morning, therefore, fan on full speed.
“9am #adayinpics”
Eggs for breakfast with the morning email scan-through.
“10am #adayinpics”
Tiny potted plant gardening.
“11am #adayinpics”
Running work errands, sweating profusely, examining the beautiful city I live in.
“12pm #adayinpics”
Heading back home, stopping to admire the potential of a once-abandoned building that’s already being realized.
“1pm #adayinpics #resume”
Working on my resume, attempting to create an image of myself on paper that shows my own potential.
“4pm #adayinpics #walden”
A resume rest and Walden in the living room.
“6pm #adayinpics #naptime #hidinginsidethehorribleweather”
Finally retreating back to the relative comfort of my bedroom and box fan.
follow me on Instagram: @ohnewfree
not everyone can be everything
Not everyone can be everything. This is still something I’m struggling with. Someone has to be onstage at a concert, someone has to be the crowd. Someone has to mop the floors at McDonalds, someone has to collect the neighborhood’s trash. Someone has to work at that grocery store for thirty years, wearing the same blue-collared shirt until it goes threadbare, wearing the same faded black pants until the boss declares it’s time for a new pair. Not everyone can be everything. Not everyone wants to be. This is still something I’m struggling with. The cashier likes her job, she likes to talk to people. The janitor hums while he mops. They aren’t in constant pain. They’re okay. I can’t understand it. I’m not like that.
At a concert, someone’s on the stage. In the crowd, the people stand, watching, swaying, singing, bobbing their heads. The performer has his dream, but the people have dreams, too. They want something like what’s on that stage — maybe not that exact thing, but something. Not everyone can be everything, but everyone can be something. I don’t understand what happens to those dreams. This is something I’m still struggling with.
don’t forget he’s just like you
Don’t forget that he’s a person. Don’t forget he grew up in a house with his family, just like you. Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe his parents were divorced. Maybe he lived with his grandparents. Don’t forget that. Don’t forget he has other people in his life. Sometimes he’ll go places and you won’t be invited. Don’t forget that that’s ok.
Don’t forget that he’s done things; he’s lived. Don’t forget that he has dreams. Don’t forget that he has nightmares, like you. Don’t forget that he falls asleep each night, and wakes up again each morning, and all the while he was breathing: in and out, in and out.
Don’t forget he has feelings. Don’t forget he gets sad – truly sad, like you sometimes. Think more of him than just a person you can smile at. Don’t think that he’ll willingly hold all of your scars and secrets inside of him. Don’t think you own him because you’ve been in his Facebook profile picture for six months. Don’t forget he’s his own person.
“It’s important not to rush…”
“It’s important not to rush through life so much that you don’t find time to do the things you really should be doing.”
“What things do you wish you’d made more time to do?”
“I wish I’d learned to drive a racecar. Learned to cook. Followed up with a certain young lady. I wish I’d read more. I’ve got this stack of books I’m going through now, but I should have read them 50 years ago. I’m even reading Harry Potter!”
Check out Humans of New York: http://www.humansofnewyork.com/
This post: http://www.humansofnewyork.com/post/45638260257/its-important-not-to-rush-through-life-so-much
Love and Couches, Hey Infinity #18
1. Sometimes people don’t want to talk about themselves – and instead will do so while talking about other things.
2. Stop talking about how unintelligent other people are. It makes you sound stupid.
3. Always remind yourself to love other people’s love.
4. Listen to your favorite music right before that job interview/first date/other really exciting/scary event in your life! It will calm you down and remind you of the person that you actually are – not the person who’s really fucking nervous!
5. If you find that the people who you love/care about most have nothing left in common with you, it might be time to find new people to love/care about. Not that you have to drop those old relationships – it’s just time for some new ones.
6.I love you but your spelling is terrible.
7. Sometimes you just need a little reminder that there is so much more out there than what you can see.
8. Endings are sad/hard/can be the end of something good. However, endings are also the beginning. Of what, who knows – but something!
9. A baby dog crying is way worse than a baby human crying!
10. Sure, that thing you’re supposed to do later takes the effort of getting out of your chair/bed/house – and sometimes all you want to do is not do anything. But, it’s always better to experience new things – even if you have to force yourself into it, even if you really would rather lay on that nice, comfy couch… The couch will wait for you! The experience, not so much.
Hey Infinity 