Polariodia

I like this entry in the NY Times new photojournalism blog.

Memorial Day wknd= a borrowed honda, an old friend, and a whole lot of eggs in a city where two rivers meet

Capacity for surprise

Lake front, Chicago.

"It was as if God has decided to put to the test every capacity for surprise and was keeping the inhabitants of Macondo in a permanent alternation between excitement and disappointment, doubt and revelation, to such an extreme that no one knew for certain where the limits of reality lay"
--gabriel garcia marquez "100 years of solitude"

Pass it on

Gloria's Sandals

This is a picture from a batch of photographs that I thought I lost in the transition from Peru. I was thinking that 300 photographs were really lost and so frustrated and making bargains with God. Then I found them burned onto a CD I thought I had already checked...so I guess I have a big week of meditation ahead of me. Whateves, I'm happy.

That was only part of a good weekend. I also saw Middle Distance Runner (hot in more than one way) at Rock 'n Roll Hotel with people I've known long and well, photographed a few dogs while attending my first dog birthday party in Alexandria (full of very social characters), and had a sweet little brunch this morning in Eastern Market and my first cup of coffee since coming back to DC (heavenly).

I also didn't attend a party at my own house. It was a big one with a DJ and many people and I wasn't feeling it (I'm finally admitting that I don't like being a hostess with a ton of people in my house), so I went to MDR and spent the night at my brother's apartment. It was so liberating to wake up in the morning and feel good instead of hungover. I'm digging this honesty thing.

Such good style and now this.

This article about Norway's economy in the NY Times reminds me of a scene from a cartoon that I must have seen when I was really young. It was about these really drab worker ants who toiled building a food supply during the summer months while the carefree grasshoppers had themselves a good time. Then when wintertime came, these very same ants had threw themselves quite a party in a toasty warm room with good snacks while the grasshoppers shivered outside, looking in with jealousy through their perfect 20/20 hindsight.

A sleepy little Florida town just got more interesting...

My mom with Stephen in the Florida swamps.

...because my mom lives there now. And it looks like she is going to stay--her and her boyfriend Stephen just got engaged!

For those of you who don't know this story, I accidentally set my mom up with Stephen. He was on a trip I took down to the Peruvian amazon last September. He has such a big heart and adventurous spirit that I started to think him and my mom would get along--even if they just were traveling partners. He claims that at some point on this trip I leaned over and told him that he should marry my mom, but I think he misheard me over the boat's motor--that seems a little forward to say when you barely know somebody (alright, being the impulsive person that I am, maybe I would say this--its honestly fuzzy in my mind).

Anyway, my mom was living in China at the time after taking a year to travel and soul-search. They became email pen-pals and when she moved back to the States at the end of the year, he came up to DC to visit and see if there were any sparks. In my mom's words, they "really hit it off," and she decided to move down there in February to see what would happen and since then, a lot has happpened.

Ain't life just interesting sometimes, even when you live in a town called Palatka, FL?

True and truer.

smoke rises in the trees of puca orquillo.

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting �
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Madeline and Aaron up and get married.

Madeline and Aaron got married this weekend in Chicago after knowing each other for a bagillion years.

We worried that they might be rushing into it, but Madeline looked lovely so we just decided to have a good time and take advantage of their signature drink and setting the world record of number of pictures taken in a rented photo booth during one wedding.

During all this, Abby looked hot in her hot pink dress.

And Ann humored me while I tried to turn pre-wedding into an Anthropologie photo shoot.

And the rest of them ate the tops of the wedding cake made by Abby and were happy about it.

It was a beautiful way to come back from Peru. Congratulations guys!

Being back in DC...

...makes this past month seem like a strange dream. Good thing I have quite a few pictures to bring it all back, like this one of a little girl from the Bora people outside of Iquitos. Her dad, Ramon, was our guide for our 10 day excursion to Pevas and surrounding towns and impressed us all with his good nature in helping five bumbling gringos film a documentary.

I am excited to share more photos--keep checking in.