Kick Start Er

Well, I did it. Something I thought I'd never do... Kickstarter.

I thought Kickstarter was for lazy teenagers to get their parents to donate to their drug habit-- er, I mean band. But when I couldn't book enough shoots to pay for my broken camera equipment before I go to Iceland (it's mostly my fault, living in Wyoming makes it hard for my Utah-based clients to schedule shoots), I decided to check out Kickstarter.

I was... surprised.

It's actually a pretty cool place with pretty cool projects. Sure there are plenty that make you wonder about humanity, but really people are quite clever overall. Looking through the different rewards offered for one's pledge got me thinking that it's the sort of place you can find pretty cool and unique presents for friends. Just in case you were looking for that sorta thing...

Anyway, without further ado, here is my kickstarter:

DISCOVERING ICELAND: A YEAR IN FIRE AND ICE

And here is a pretty great Portlandia clip I think about every time I post something about Kickstarter:

peace,

k.

To Peter Pan

I promise I'm not feeling this angsty all the time-- these are just some words I needed to get out after a text I got this morning from a lovely friend of mine about a guy. This is for all the people that claim baggage but really like to keep a pack of hearts tied in their arsenal for their fickle disposal. I like to call them Peter Pans.

When did love become so cheap and people so disposable?

And the games

the games

the games

(we cant talk about those though).

Don't pass me the confusion she gives you,

Or the lack of commitment she lives, you

have no excuse for the selfish behavior you blame on your unfinished soul.

I am 

here. 

Remember that I am

living

breathing

Seeing

and doing the best that I can

not waiting for Peter Pan.

And when I give you an out,

take it,

because you know you don't want to make it

work out.

But you forgot to tell me that when you held my hand.

Let's be clear that you sold the perfect counterfeit

life

strife

and need of a wife,

because you knew I was blind

to this hypocritical crime you willingly commit.

Boy, you almost kiss as well as you lie with those lips.

I know you don't care about me

but 

please

stop treating hearts like they don't break,

or selling love that is fake,

because I dunno when I'm gonna shake

the image of us that you left me.

peace,

k. 

Two Months and Two Days

No one warned me about the growing emptiness I would endure two months and two days after my brother's death. Perhaps only fools and cliches think it gets easier everyday. Instead the pain is sharper and experiences more noticeably stale without him. When did the world move on and where did I forget to change gears? My life is no longer dictated to me or defined to others by my brother's cancer and death, and yet this heavy ghost lingers, reminding me 10,000 times a day that he is gone. He is gone. The words never stop taking my breath away. It seems the silliest and most trivial things hold my heart hostage the most; finally seeing a movie we excitedly watched previews of together, wanting to text him about the ultra-conservative 'merica testimony I heard at church, listening to songs from his life's soundtrack, and oddly even the sound of someone puking. Everyday I'm reminded how much of our intricate relationship I took for granted and the holes left that will forever remain unfilled. He is gone.

Maybe the starkness of "gone" isn't a fair description. Alex is eternally around. I feel his personality and spiritual influence almost daily in my life, and one day I know I will physically see him again. But gone are the experiences of this life's unique tangibility and imperfection... something I desperately mourn. These days I often find myself pushing through photo albums of Alex, cherishing each idiosyncratic facial feature and the fleeting moments they were born from. What can be more precious and painful than these images?

Being able to document Alex's final days is the greatest photographic calling I've ever had, and it completely changed the way I view my craft. They don't come anywhere close to the most technically sound images I've created, so many being simple snapshots, but they are the most important images I've captured in my life so far. Never have any of my days been so hallowed as then, and never have I been so thankful to have these images to cling to as now. These photographs are the only things that sometimes, albeit brief, make him feel not so gone.

 

 

It is said certain aboriginal tribes across the world fear (or have feared) photography because they believe it steals one's soul. I sure hope so, because that's all we've got.

peace,
k.

When The Light Goes Out

Those who carry a knife and a pear are never afraid of the dark.  

- Beatrice and Virgil, by Yann Martel

peace,

k.

Hurling Crowbirds at Mockingbars

Tonight, this poem by Buddy Wakefield expanded my capacity to experience emotion and create art (in less pretentious words, it melted my face off with it's awesomeness). Give it a little listen, or two, or three, or four. More please.

(Caution, some language and a funny looking thumbnail preview...)

If we were created in God’s image,
then when God was a child
He smushed fire ants with his fingertips
and avoided tough questions.
There are ways around being the go-to person,
even for ourselves,
even when the answer is clear,
like the holy water Gentiles would drink
before they realized,

“Forgiveness is the release of all hope for a better past.”

I thought those were chime shells in your pocket
so I chucked a quarter at it,
hoping to hear some part of you respond on a high note.
You acted like I was hurling crowbirds at mockingbars,
then abandoned me for not making sense.
Evidently, I don’t experience things as rationally as you do.

For example,
I know mercy
when I have enough money to change the jukebox
at a gay bar.
You know mercy
whenever someone shoves a stick of morphine
straight up into your heart.
It felt amazing
the days you were happy to see me.

So I smashed a beehive against the ocean
to try and make our splash last longer.
Remember all the honey
had me lookin’ like a jellyfish ape,
but you,
you walked off the water
in a porcupine of light,
strands of gold
drizzled out to the tips of your wasps.
This is an apology letter to the both of us
for how long it took me to let things go.

It was not my intention to make such a production
of the emptiness between us,
playing tuba on the tombstone of a soprano
to try and keep some dead singer’s perspective alive.
It’s just that I coulda swore you sung me a love song back there
and that you meant it,
but I guess some people just chew with their mouth open.

So I ate ear plugs alive with my throat
hoping they’d get lodged
deep enough inside the empty spots
that I wouldn’t have to hear you leaving,
I wouldn’t have to listen to my heart keep saying
all my eggs were in a basket of red flags,
all my eyes to a bucket of blindfolds,
in the cupboard with the muzzles and the gauze.
You know I didn’t mean to speed so far out and off
trying to drive your nickels to a well
when you were happy to let them wishes drop.

But I still show up for gentleman practice
in the company of lead dancers
hoping
their grace will get stuck in my shoes.
Is that a handsome shadow on my breath, sweet woman,
or is it a cattle call in a school of fish?
Still dance with me,
less like a waltz for panic,
more for the way we’d hoped to swing
the night we took off everything
and we were swingin’ for the fences.

Don’t hold it against
my love.
You know I wanna breathe deeper than this.
I didn’t mean to look so serious.
Didn’t mean to act like a filthy floor.
Didn’t mean to turn us both into some cutting board.
But there were knives stuck
in the words where I came from.
Too much time in the back of my words.
I pulled knives from the back of my words.
I cut trombones from the moment you slipped away.

And I know it left me lookin’ like a knife fight, lady.
Boy, I know it left me feelin’ like a shotgun shell.
You know I know I mighta gone and lost my breath.
But I wanna show you how I found my breath to death.

It was buried under all the wind instruments
hidden in your castanets.
Goddamn.
If you ever wanna know how it felt when ya left,
if ya ever wanna come inside,
just knock the spot
when I finally pressed stop
playing musical chairs with your exit signs.
I’m gonna cause you a miracle
when you see the way I kept God’s image alive —

“Forgiveness is for anyone who needs safe passage through my mind.”

If I was really created in God’s image,
then when God was a boy
He wanted to grow up to be a man,
a good man.
And when God was a man,
a good man,
He started telling the truth in order to get honest responses.
He’d say, “Yeah,
I know
I really shoulda wore my cross
again,
but I don’t wanna scare the Gentiles off."

peace,
k.

Crash

It was 7:15am. I left early enough so I could make it to church that afternoon.

Sunday morning marked the end of an emotional marathon I had clumsily persevered over the last couple of months-- finishing a particularly rough semester, moving out of state, my brother's last days, his death and memorial, out of state wedding shoots, making a hard decision to quit a job, and the approximately 50 hours spent driving back and forth from my Utah life and my Wyoming life. Sunday's drive was to be my last trip back to Wyoming until September or October, and I was anxiously anticipating settling down into life, my new church calling, and a fresh start. I craved the consistency of some sort of routine, and I happily welcomed the idea of staying in one place longer than a week.

The 5 to 6 hour drive (for the ___ time) is monotonous, but I've made it my ritual to listen to a few choice podcasts to pass the time. I started my drive off with a RadioLab episode about the afterlife. I recommend you listen to it, as I don't think I can adequately capture how deeply beautiful and profound this episode is. It tied in so perfectly to where my mind recently wandered in quiet moments. Life, death, life again. I moved on to an episode of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, and then started a This American Life, but I couldn't get the vignettes of death out of my mind.

Then in happened. It was around 9:30am.

There was a silver car coming straight at me in my northbound lane. It had been blocked by the three semis it was trying to pass, so I didn't see it until it was right in front of me. There was only a second to react. Two semis were passing me southbound on my left side, so I veered right into the shoulder, trying to prevent a surely fatal collision while also keeping my car from rolling on the uneven ground into the ditch below. My tires caught some gravel, and I felt my car slowly overpower me as it gently drifted back onto the road and into the path of another oncoming southbound semi. Although I wasn't spinning out of control, like one might expect, I had absolutely no control as I slightly veered into oncoming traffic, and I knew there was nothing I could do to prevent what was to happen next.

Here we go. This is going to happen.

Those were the words that calmly crossed my mind, and instead of fear, I was filled with a monumental sense of strength as I came closer to the giant truck. Everything became a strange sort of slowness. I was rocked with a series of loud sounds that oddly seemed far away and haphazard; screeching breaks, the semi's horn, a crash, another crash, another crash. Although completely conscious, I don't remember feeling anything, just seeing and hearing everything.

I sat in my car for a moment, stunned and probably in shock. I'm OK, but confused as to why my car wouldn't start so I could safely move it out of the road. I heard the sound of steam, and out my windshield I didn't see what was once a front of a car. My delicious McHotChocolate and a soda dripped from the ceiling, my things, myself. Everything was a scattered, broken, sticky mess. I looked to see if the silver car stopped, it didn't. I looked to the semi, which had crashed into the ditch on the East side of the road, and didn't see any movement from it's cab.

I pushed my way out of the drivers side door and hurried over to the semi. Thankfully I saw a women crawl out of the cab, and some others emerge from the opposite side. I asked if anyone was hurt and told them I was OK. More people appeared. Someone called 911. A couple of men who saw the wreck happened to be first responders and stopped to offer assistance. They asked me if anyone had checked the car yet. I am the driver of that car, I told them, and I'm OK. You were the driver? They asked me again if I was hurt. No, I'm OK. The other people around asked me again if I was the driver of the car and if there was anyone with me. No, it was just me, and I'm OK. Their disbelief confused me until I looked back at my car.

It's hard to describe the emotion that flooded me. I was overwhelmed with a sacred feeling of thankfulness, and strongly felt the presence of my brother, Alex. I just stared at my car and started to cry.

I'm OK. I'm OK. I'm OK.

The vision of my family receiving the call about the accident, my death, the pain and sadness of planning another funeral just weeks after my brother's, and the heartbreaking loss of another child and sibling was so close and so... real... almost like that was the actual reality I was supposed to have. So real, in fact, I could physically feel the sadness of my family in reaction to my loss and it was utterly devastating. Reason, logic, and physics all pointed to me being dead or seriously injured, and yet... I wasn't. Something prevented it. All I could think of was Alex. I knew, without a doubt, Alex had protected me and it was nothing short of a miracle.

When the police, paramedics, fireman, and tow truck arrived, everyone's reactions were the same. They wanted to know where the body of the driver of the car was, and instead they found me. It was like they were looking at a ghost as their eyes widened, not believing what they were physically seeing. They would follow up with their years of experience and never seeing anything like this, asked me if I was wearing my seat belt (I was), and always finished off by telling me someone must have been looking out for me.

My brother was, I would tell them.

A couple days before Alex died, my dad gave him a blessing to release his spirit. He called him as a missionary in the next life and a guardian angel for our family.

Although I tend to be skeptical and greatly value logic, there is nothing worldly that can claim responsibility for my survival of this crash. It just doesn't add up. I don't know why I was preserved while horrors happen every day to others, but I was. Honestly, I feel strongly that I logically should have died in that crash, but was saved so my family wouldn't have to mourn another loss so soon.

The initial head-on impact of my car against the semi was so strong it bent the drive axle of the semi. When my car spun around from that hit, I was also hit on the backside, and the bumper of my car got caught up underneath the wheels of the semi trailer. Instead of being sucked in and rolled over (like what should have happened) I was shot back out onto the road. I suffered nothing more than a itty bitty cut on my thumb, some cool looking bruises, and whiplash (which has already mostly gone away).

I lost some things, including a portion of my camera equipment, but it's all just "stuff" and can be replaced. Money can be re-made, things re-bought, and the inconveniences of working with insurance (especially since the silver car didn't stop) is but a passing moment that doesn't matter. What matters, in the words of my brother, is your relationship with the Lord, your relationship with other people, and your relationship with yourself.

Life is a precious gift, my dear friends. Live it well.

peace,
k. 

A Perfect Day

A few days ago Alex, in the cancer-induced discomforts of dehydration, expressed that all he'd like to do is float around the Lazy River at Seven Peaks. Although the idea seemed refreshing, it was hard to believe it would ever happen. Seven Peaks doesn't open until Memorial Day weekend, and we all knew it was very possible we'd be holding his funeral, and not frolicking at a water park, during that time. Yet, my sister set out to Facebook to see what she could find. Luckily, our friend Raven knew someone who knew someone who put us in contact with the general manager who gave it all systems go.

Seven Peaks opened up just for us; a small group of siblings, friends, and Alex's hospice nurse Luke. They gave us tubes, had lifeguards on hand (one was even a photographer and took pictures for us with my camera), gave Alex a sweet party gift, and could not have been more accommodating the entire time.

For nearly two and a half hours we floated around and around the Lazy River. We even rode The Vortex (picture a ride much like a toilet bowl). I was worried a water slide might hurt Alex's already sore body, to which he replied "well, I'm dying in a couple days anyway, what's the worst that can happen?".

While we relaxed in the smooth water under a hot and cloudless sky, it was hard to believe there was anything wrong with Alex, the world, anything. Time felt as invincible as the endless summer days of our childhood, before terminal and cancer were commonplace in our vocabularies. Seeing Alex outside, clinging to a tube and cracking jokes, almost made me forget about the sleepless nights emptying puke buckets, the countless hours spent in the chemo ward, the horror of watching someone you love writhe in pain, and the inevitable death that is still coming despite over 2 years of heavy medical interventions.

When we eventually returned to my parent's house, we all went down into the entertainment room where Alex sleeps, turned off all the lights, and turned on Sigur Ros's new album Valtari. We looked at pictures from the day and just sat, soaking in the delicious sounds in the darkness.

It was perfect.

peace,
k.