Two for Tuesdays: For Whom the School Bells Toll

School started yesterday in my small city and a certain buzz seemed detectable. Summer officially ended and fresh starts and new notebooks became the order of the day. I got stuck behind a gaggle of yellow school buses on Northwest Blvd and enjoyed hearing the familiar grinding gears and squealing brakes.

They reminded me of this strong twosome I spotted one school day morning last spring. I saw the mother and daughter pair in a San Francisco neighborhood as they began what looked to be a well-rehearsed routine, the exit from home.

Helmets on, bags stored on the motorcycle's back, they approached a very steep hill, hanging on and looking forward. There's an alertness and anticipation to their going, and I like that most of all. Plus, how cool is it that the mom drives a motorcycle.

Two for Tuesday: Summer's End

I found this rusty twosome by the side of the road recently. Waiting for garbage pick up, they looked like an elderly couple who'd been through a hell of a lot of summers together. Age shows up differently on each person and the same holds true with these two classic chairs - one is worn in the seat and arms, the other took a beating everywhere.

But there's beauty in decay; there's a tactile elegance in the curbside debris. This portrait reminds me of wabi-sabi, the Japanese aesthetic that embraces imperfection, impermanence, the transient nature of all things.

Seasons are great teachers that everything comes and then it goes. In North Carolina, the acorns are dropping and the tomato plants look as tuckered out as these chairs.

In 2008 I spent a lot of time thinking about Wabi-sabi (a long story). Here's a quote from the Buddhist architect Kisko Kuro Kawa that I found in a journal from that era. We used to consider things that could live forever to be beautiful. But this way of thinking has been exposed as a lie. True beauty lies in things that die, things that change.  

Watch Out, Sugar

Sometimes the other idea is the idea.

I'd planned to make photographs in some fountains downtown. I'd scoped the place out on a Monday and when we arrived on Tuesday all the fountains were drained. There wasn't a drop of water anywhere. Not really. Just a few sad looking puddles in the concrete pools.

The divine Ms. Joy Thompson and I had some fun anyway. We moved along, brought the ball with us, and had a really good time in the sticky summer evening.

This week she's off to PhD-land and I wish her the very best. The door at Kabassah village is always open:)

Two for Tuesday: Tutu Time

I am so lucky to say that this pair of beauties are really good friends of mine. I've known this twosome since the beginning and I love them absolutely, positively, and completely. They call me Didi and I call them heaven on earth.

The ariel view of sister and brother perched together on two big white pillows suggests the other worldliness of childhood play. Are they resting on a boat or visiting a new country or floating on ice cream? Could be anything. Together, they constantly explore the dreamy yet active world of make believe where animals talk, ballerinas spin, and magic resides. No creative block for this dynamic duo, that's for sure.

Just look at their tutus and the way their heads touch together, merging into a shape as continuous and flowing as their play -- can't you see why I'm head over heels in love?

Sneak Preview

It's been a big week here at Lookout Circle. Lots of news and movement and mood swings. I am frightened and grateful and looking for the lightness of being. Always looking.

Two for Tuesday: Bittersweet

There's a fancy pants word literary types use called synecdoche which means, roughly speaking, summoning something in its entirety by drawing attention to a part. In this image, the twosome's woven legs are the part that shows the entirety of a friendship.

It's not every day you find a person you love so much you can cross your bare leg over theirs, making it look like the most natural move in the world.

I taught these two lovely and intelligent classmates during my art residency this year at Forest Park Elementary. I didn't get parental permissions to share their photos, so I cropped the image down to hide their faces and ended up liking how their body language revealed the trust and comfort these fourth grade girls felt with each other. 

When I asked them how long they'd been best friends, they'd said since kindergarten. 

Their intimate unity took on greater meaning when the girl wearing the dress told me she was moving the next day, leaving school in the middle of the year, about to say goodbye to her buddy who knew her secrets, knew her before she could spell.

She was moving, she wasn't sure where, didn't know why and couldn't remember the name of her new school. In an instant, the love I saw became bittersweet.