Vermont Photography

I'm reminded often of how much I love Vermont, but also how ready I am for someplace new. I've been working recently on my thesis (a 100 page small book due on April 2nd!) which has involved finishing interviews, transcribing and sorting through long Word documents to form structure.

Photography will also be incorporated into the book, mostly photographs of those who I've interviewed, but because my topic is exclusive to Vermont, there'll be a bit of scenery as well. I'm not sure how much or little to include, but my favorite Vermont scenes since September are below.

Burlington, September.

Shelburne, September.

Stowe, October.

Richford, October.

Richford, October.

Richford, October.

Richford, October.

Stowe, October.

Ferrisburgh, November.

Berlin, December.

Brattleboro, December.

Williston, January.

Bellows Falls, February.

Bellows Falls, February.

Winter Simplicity

I've been at my parent's house for a couple of days and there is so much winter and snow here. So much. I've begun to fear that spring will never arrive.

I read a bit of nature-themed poetry this evening and these two poems stayed with me.

Midwinter 
by John Unterecker 

At dusk, a great flare of winter
lightning photographed the bay:
Waves were broken scrolls.
Beyond Donegal, white mountains
hung in a narrow bas-relief frozen on sky.

Later, there
was sleet: trees down
on the Drumholm road; near
Timoney's farm, a frantic goose
pinned under branches.

All night
long, we spoke of loneliness,
long winter, while winter sang in
the chimneys.

Then the sky cleared and a marvel
began: The hills turned blue;
in the valley a blue cottage sent up
the day's first plume of smoke.
It gathered like a dream drenched
in frost.

The Well Rising
by William E. Strafford

The well rising without sound,
the spring on a hillside,
the plowshare brimming through
deep ground
everywhere in the field --

The sharp swallows in their swerve
flaring and hesitating
hunting for the final curve
coming closer and closer --

The swallow heart from wingbeat to
wingbeat counseling decision, decision:
thunderous examples. I place my feet
with care in such a world.

Stained Sky and Running

It's continued to be super snowy here. I wouldn't mind the arrival of spring anytime, really. Lately I've been finding the color of the sky fascinating. Thursday and Friday brought plenty of snow. I went snowshoeing on Friday night after the storm and the clouds were still heavy but the sky was stained slightly pink.

Saturday was clear, and along with a few friends, I ran in my first 5k! I had been running often since the beginning of the semester but dating back to middle and high school, have never been too talented with it. I began to push myself this past month though, and while running doesn't seem to come naturally, it is invigorating and an activity I hope to continue. When a friend invited me to run a 5k with her, I agreed, asked my friend Katie to join and together, we trained indoors in the evenings for about a week and a half. I knew I wouldn't be able to non-stop run the 5k, but I wasn't too far off. Despite the cold weather too and the adjustment to running outdoors in February, I felt so warm throughout. It reminded me of nordic skiing races in high school and how when focused on something else, the cold air just doesn't matter. 

                                     

                                                       Thursday evening.

                                    

                                     Katie and I shortly after finishing, so happy.

      

                         

Remembering

A line in a New York Times article I read this morning has stayed with me throughout the day.

"I write because I desperately need to communicate, and because I know that ultimately, I cannot. I write to remember, and to be remembered. The one desire emerges from the other." --Saul Austerlitz.

When the Words Keep Arriving

It's a plague I've suffered heavily from before. Beginning sometime in late 2012, words and phrases began to come to me at all times of day and night. I was reading heavily at the time and writing often, but the words came from everywhere. They were wonderful, but an annoyance. I needed a notebook nearby at all times. I could think clearly, but the words still interrupted when they weren't welcome. It had begun slowly, happening for the first time in April 2012, during an especially busy time. Mostly the words arrived in the daytime, but gradually stretched into the evenings. I collected them as best I could, sentences of prose or a few poetic words, phrases, descriptions, ideas, characters and settings, but so many slipped away.

It intensified last winter and spring. Especially when I faded into sleep. I kept a notebook next to my bed and most nights, fought off the sleep to write down the words that kept arriving. Some nights I would promise that I would memorize the words and write them in the morning. Most nights this worked. I would dream about the words in the meantime. Then, sometime last summer, the words stopped coming. Few have since. Until last night. Or perhaps this morning. It was nearly 2 a.m. and the deep exhaustion was there. The sleep wasn't though. The words couldn't stop. In the dark, I scribbled down everything I could. Reading these words now, I had written in my half-conscious state, "It's not that sleep won't come, it's that the words won't let it. They fight and push and weave their way into every thought of my mind."

Before the flood of words arrived, I had been writing about something else in the same notebook. I was reflecting on how leading a student organization these past four years has led me to think about the journey I'm taking. How happy it's made me. I thought about the future for the organization, writing to those who will someday undertake the same responsibility, "It's my hope that you'll know the greater impact of what you're involved in, and know that it's worth every minute you give." This caused me to realize that everything in our lives are worth every minute we give. I might want sleep, but I want the words too. I want to be present in everything I can. I want to choose my life and grow to understand if I don't know what will come along with it.

I remembered this evening, after a long day, of words a friend once sang,  "I will leave a light on for you, my friend. I will hold a place for you on this road that never ends." This friend has since passed away. As I join many others in the entry into the world outside of academia, I want to remember these words. I want to know that the road going forward is a very good one.

Tea & Cooking

I taught my first cooking class on Friday! It was informal. One of my friends wanted to learn how to cook. We made mango-fried rice with tofu and vegetables. I'd say it was pretty successful.

Earlier today I went to tea with a friend. I had never been to the teahouse we went to before, but it was wonderful! In addition to my chai I ordered a daal soup with rice. I was also reminded of how fun Burlington is and how rarely I venture there in the midst of busy life. Time to change that.

A frightening dream of mine came true early Tuesday morning. It was shortly before 8 a.m. when I opened my car door to find the banana I had left there overnight had frozen solid. I had heard such was possible if a banana was left outside overnight when temperatures reach 20 below. I think it only got to 0 during the night, but it was true. The banana had turned to stone.

The frozen banana on a Bob Dylan CD. Once the heat was turned on, the banana quickly turned completely black.

Camera Joy

There are countless reasons why I feel fortunate to be a student of Saint Michael’s College and the department of media studies, journalism and digital arts (as a disclaimer, I’m writing this independently of Saint Michael’s College).

The writing instruction might be the most important to me, but the web design skills, journalism history, media law, audio recording skills, newspaper design, and certainly, the photojournalism skills have proved equally necessary. My few photographing skills come solely from my spring 2012 photojournalism class. With this class, came the best camera I’ve ever used. It was a canon and I know little else about it besides that I used a nice lens throughout the spring and a giant one when I photographed President Obama in late March.

the giant lens on the canon.

The giant lens in action.

When I needed to reluctantly return it in May, I told myself that maybe someday, I would purchase a camera like that for myself. As the next two years unfolded, I found the images I captured on my small point and shoot while exploring Scotland were more than sufficient and in the last seven months, my iPhone has taken over all photography. No complaints from either. With my ongoing senior seminar project though, a department camera came my way. It's another canon and I didn't think it would be possible, but it’s even nicer than the previous one. After purchasing a memory card this morning, I tested it out on my room's surroundings.

Portraying Reality and Writing for Freedom

As I write this on a train journey, I find myself distracted by the want to photograph the scenes zooming by. Many of the scenes would be considered beautiful, but can't be captured. Many others would not be considered beautiful, and still can't be captured. Few of the scenes make beautiful pictures. Yet they’re familiar. They’re what we witness everyday. Photography glorifies what we see each day. It breathes new light and perspective into our mental images. Blogging one's photography gives the photographer the power to choose the best of the best. What we don’t share is exactly what we see.
All scenes below were photographed in southern Vermont and western Massachusetts.

I've been enjoying reading Poets to the People, an anthology published in 1980 spotlighting South African Freedom Poets and bringing attention to the ongoing apartheid in the nation. It's a collection of sadness, awareness, understanding, resilience and ideas for a better world. It's rare to find an anthology where nearly every poem connects with and inspires the reader. For me, this might be one of the few. Below are two of my many favorites in the collection, "At the Dawn I saw Africa" by John Matshikzai and "First Day after the War" by Mazisi Kunene.

At the Dawn I saw Africa

At the dawn I saw Africa,

And pride moved in its body

As I moved;

And the light which we breathed

Was strong.

Our King was our people,

And the king, Ngonyama (lion),

Moved without fear;

And the light in the sun

Shone on the birds, the trees,

And the voices of children.

Yesterday my people were fierce,

And smiled that all things moving,

In all the lands,

Beyond all seas,

Held no fear for us.

Today the king is dead.

Where is that dawn I woke to,

When the sun was round,

And breathed life from the earth?

We do not move.

Where are the voices of the birds and trees,

And the light shining on our children?

My child's voice is strong

But I do not hear. 

Yesterday when we were proud,

And knew that we lived

In all the lands

And beyond all seas,

The earth lived in us. 

Today the king is dead.

I, of the Nation, 

Have no king. 

Today I see

No light in the sun,

And today,

Before you, the Nation,

I am no longer living.

Before you, the Nation

I say that I am dead,

And will live again only

When our Nation is free,

And the sun sings in the eyes of my child.

And as I rise,

My king shall rise,

And Africa will come back.

Today I have died.

First Day after the War

We heard the songs of a wedding party.

We saw a soft light

Coiling round the young blades of grass

At first we hesitated, then we saw her footprints,

Her face emerged, then her eyes of freedom!

She woke us with a smile saying,

'What day is this that comes suddenly?'

We said, 'It is the first day after the war.'

Then without waiting we ran to the open space

Ululating to the mountains and the pathways

Calling people from all the circles of the earth.

We shook up the old man demanding a festival

We asked for all the first fruits of the season.

We held hands with a stranger

We shouted across the waterfalls

People came from all lands

It was the first day of peace.

We saw our Ancestors travelling tall on the horizon.

Evolution on a Thursday

Greetings! Oh man, I think this week has been the busiest yet. I hope to gain more sleep soon. All is very well though. Things are being accomplished and it's hard to believe how fast the semester and year are going. Most days, I wish time would slow down.

I don't think I've ever shared much of Lucie Brock-Broido's work before, but after reading her for the first time last spring she quickly became one my favorite poets. "Evolution" from her 1988 collection A Hunger might be my favorite. It's a blend of history, realization and imagery.

It reminds me of what we share and admire from one another as well as the memories we leave behind through art, music and image.

Evolution

The extinct creatures would have liked this day,
a festival flooded all the way to the river.

If they were still alive with us, they would curl
into the leaves last autumn,
begin their long journey to be coal.
Someday, they would be precious minerals.

They might have been confused,
the cello playing solo,
these chief black strokes --
the Chinese character for rain.

But they would have understood
the love of old leaves heaped,
the dogs barking down
the late afternoons, howling for summertime.

What I want is to sleep away an epoch,
wake up as a girl with another kind of heart.

In the Vatican library, the letters
to Anne Boleyn are pinned down to keep
from coiling. An entire country
changed its faith once for its king.

I want to know what the letters say & go on
saying, what her face looked like in sleep.

By supper the invalids will be lying
down, whorled in white coverlets,
exhausted from yearning,
Everything they do is smaller than these
who walked in a world
 that was greater than this one.

I am the medieval child in the basket, rocking.
Feigning sleep, up all night listening for secrets:
why there are punishments,
what news bad weather brings,
how things get winnowed out.

85 = 3.5 billion

The world's 85 wealthiest individuals have more combined wealth than the world's 3.5 billion poorest individuals (50% of world population). It's an Oxfam statistic released this week that I still can't wrap my head around. To better understand, I used my limited math skills to make some comparisons to understand 3.5 billion people:

3.5 billion people = roughly 3 times the population of India.
3.5 billion people = 3.6 times the entire population of south, north and central America.
3.5 billion people = 11 times the population of the United States.
3.5 billion people = roughly 5 times the entire population of Europe.
3.5 billion people = roughly 3.5 times the entire population of Africa.
3.5 billion people = 92 times the entire population of California.

                                                  On another front,

I'm going to miss college.

(photo by Alexandra Byrne)