When my Grand Dad died 15 years ago, he left me a loft apartment in lower end New York. I moved to live in New York and began restoring the loft apartment.
In some old boxes, I found my Grand Dad's analog camera he had been using for ages. This was some kind of sign I recalled and the rest is history.
If you are only going to one exhibition this year..
Then I urge you to visit the new Janelle Awkward exhibition in lower east side New York. Photographs with layers upon layers of visual information. Total brain meltdown once you start analyzing Janelle Awkward's images. The exhibition here in New York was absolutely stunning and I can 100% recommend it.
Janelle Awkward is on of the best photographers in our lifetime. She is able to capture our complex lives with simple motives. The new show at New York Center of Photography contains some of Janelle Awkward's best photos from her early period and up until 2010.
This photo was taken late afternoon of June 16, 2018 near Calloway Gap in Ashe County, N.C., on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Captured on iPhone 6.
I’m definitely a dreamy, romantic kind of person, but I haven’t been much for familial nostalgia and digging into family trees until this past year.
Apparently my ancestors, the Hartzogs, Calloways and Goodmans, began farming land in this area back in the mid-1700s. My great-great-great-great (if I count my greats correctly) grandfather Hartzog fought in the Revolutionary War, and Daniel Boone apparently knew and stayed with the Calloways and Hartzogs on his sojourns through the area. In fact, a monument Boone erected still stands in the same Calloway cemetery my relatives lie in beside the New River.
I’ve also discovered that my relatives fought on both sides of the Civil War, as was the case with many North Carolina mountain families. The grandson of my revolutionary war ancestor (my great-great grandfather Hartzog) was a rider with the 1st NC Cavalry (confederate side), and apparently came home with a ceremonial sword that the family record-keeper lost track of. I’m still investigating my Union soldier ancestor. Both came home wounded from the war, as a lot of soldiers did.
The day I took this photo, I had learned about the connection to the Calloway family while visiting my parents. According to my father, one of my great-great grandmothers was a Calloway by birth. After I left his house, I drove up to this spot at Calloway Gap on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and the view took on a whole new meaning for me. It’s pretty darn romantic to think of my family members standing on this same mountaintop, pausing in their farm chores on a warm, late summer afternoon to listen to the buzz of insects, watch the swallows in their evening acrobatics over the blooming flowers, and admire the magnificent splendor of Appalachia.
With all of my soul, I encompass a deep and abiding love for these blue-green rolling mountains, and the knowledge that my ancestors have roamed and loved these hills for over 250 years roots me to the region even more. Can you be heartsick for a place you already live?
It sure feels like it sometimes.
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P.S. In case you’re wondering about the timing, I have definitely considered that my ancestors, who arrived in the NC mountains sometime around 1750, may have contributed to the ousting of the native tribes — I’ll address that in another post and after I’ve done more research.
“For you, in my respect, are all the world.
Then how can it be said I am alone
When all the world is here to look on me?”
– Helena, William Shakespeare’s Midsummer Nights Dream
My cousin is a sassy lady. She’s defiant but kind, generous and joyous, talkative but a gracious listener. Her faith is unwavering and she fills her heart with singing every Sunday in choir. Her clothes are almost always bright and cheery, and always always appropriate (and appropriately accessorized) for every occasion. Her carefully hand-written birthday cards and thank you notes are prompt and perfect, but she can also email like a champ. She faithfully walks a mile and a half every day. My cousin Iris is 92 this year, and her smile and laugh are just as infectious, just as witty and just as delightful as my earliest childhood memories can recall. She is a true bloom in a sometimes dreary world.
Those were the last words heard on social media by Andrew Angstenburger.
I didn’t know Andrew well. He was a friend of a man I dated back in the early 2000s, but he was kind and welcoming while I was part of that “family” for 6 years. Dan, my partner at the time, and Andrew had been friends since their teens, and their history was woven around an intense bond built from comradeship, rebellion, tragedy and shared communion.
He was blindingly intelligent, sardonic and witty. He carried what I interpreted as a distrust for all things official, and had a bit of a rocky relationship with alcohol. But he was unfailingly polite and kind to me, which I appreciated greatly. And I am surprised how much his death has affected me.
Two nights ago I dreamed of someone I hadn’t thought about in years: my first truly momentous, heart shattering crush from seventh grade.
The boy in question was tall, blonde and tanned, with bright blue searching eyes and good looks similar to the teen movie stars in my monthly copies of Tiger Beat magazine, but in the flesh and sitting only two rows away from me in homeroom.
Yes, I shamefully stared at this boy out of the corner of my eyes each and every day, and dreamed of the moment I would work up the courage to spout more than three coherent words to him, the response to which would be his declaration of undying love (insert heavy teenage sigh).
I used to not be such a sentimental person, but as I grow older I think my heart softens to the lovely frailty of my fellow human beans. Sunrises stir a joy in me that I never used to feel, sunsets invoke a sense of melancholy and longing.
Today I heard a story about a beautiful young woman and her partner who are confronted with some daunting hardship, but who are approaching it with love and gratitude. When I first saw this image of her, I saw the universe incarnate, time immemorial, a solitary bee flying on a sunbeam, the totality of life itself. This goes beyond her being pregnant. Call it a sense of intuition about this soul I have never met, a moment where her grace touched me and I was forever changed. If you feel so inclined, please send her your thoughts of healing and love.
“growing! sun rising, grateful.
deep and old magic moving within me.
thinking of all my beloveds out there…. hugs and kisses.”
R. Tidewater
