Everyday starts with a question mark, who am I going to connect with, what is going to happen today?
I woke up in the suburbs of Santa Rosa one more time, swung through last night feeling like a cat left out in the rain, went to a movie then to sleep feeling a bit low and overwhelmed. Today, I didn’t speak with either of the two women that I thought I had a good lines on setting up interviews and doing the work of the project. Neither panned out, both fell through for their own reasons and that’s just fine as its all a learning experience.
I am learning so much everyday out here in this life, practical humorous solutions such as boiling morning eggs outside a dive bar at 930 in the morning. The cocktail bar has a handy electrical socket that’s alive right outside its front entrance so all the hard am drinkers are walking right by me as I nonchalantly hold an actively boiling pot of water in one hand while checking social media stuff with the other.
I am also learning the practical flow of connection to the women I will eventually actually interview. Both women that I didn’t finalize the interviews with were through more conventional connections; one being a friend of a friend, the other also a friend of a friend on the board of directors for a women’s shelter and following through with contacting the shelter’s manager and then to the client herself. Both experiences are so good to go through and both women, this time, passes on participating.
I decided to devote today to being relaxed and taking care of business at the same time, sometimes I get all twisty in needing to go! go! and today I was not going to subject myself to anxiety of any sort. Here I am in Santa Rosa again and at loose ends so I do errands after successfully boiling my breakfast eggs for the next week (yes!) I make a little plan for my day which includes going up to the Kmart that I had heard had been devastated by fire and thought that American retail institution would be striking photographically for my project. Then I would find the nearest Starbucks and get the online work done for the day that accompanies The Nature Of Refuge on a daily basis. As my day progressed I kept trying to find the nearest Starbucks, thinking that I’d do the work then and go photograph in the later afternoon when the light was more interesting, but each Starbucks that the Google Lady was directing me to was in a Safeway and I don’t want to work in a Safeway. I want to work in a free standing Starbucks that is generic and corporate but has everything I need in my work environment and is not compounding generic on top of generic by being a Starbucks in a Safeway – feel me?
The day turns into me finally just deciding to make my way up to Kmart and then I’d find the nearest free standing Starbucks and take care of that business. I follow the Lady’s voice as she directs me to – a heap of burned out gunk, Kmart is just gone, a mountain of cordoned off garbage waiting to be swept away by the powers that be. Kmart’s and its employees tragedy are in the process of being neatly and relatively quickly, swept away.
But then I look to the left behind and I see a little motel that is still eerily recognizable in its fire disfigurement, and right next door is, wait for it – a free standing Starbucks with a big sign proclaiming its openness. The cosmic order falls into place and again when the practical, magical Purpose presents itself in my life, I just have to laugh, it is always so perfect and blunt and literal.
Here is The Way, all signs pointing in This Direction.
I get my camera, I change into my fire-walking boots and go out shooting. The stories pierce me, the smell of burned out everything makes me uneasy. I can walk right into a disaster zone and so far, no one stops me. Anyone official is so busy taking care of their own business so I barely register on their radar. I am discovering that since I give zero fucks in life and what you are ‘supposed to do’, this attitude is quite helpful in what I am doing now and how I’m going about navigating this project– if I approach each situation with an air of purpose and relaxed ease, people assume I know what I’m about and leave me to it.
I photograph, getting lost in my frame, the story that is starting to unspool around me, my zone of focus and at the same time, letting go of awareness.
Just, frame, click, frame, click; my happy unconscious place even in the midst of all this destructive sadness that the fires have wrought. I move around the property, the burned out, warped doors are grabbing my attention the most, something so poignant in their lost purpose, free standing and bent with no rooms behind them in which to open up to, no more temporary refuge that a motel holds for a traveler.
I observe that two women are talking to an official looking man for quite awhile, they look busy and I won’t go over and introduce myself, they become background as I concentrate on the visualization I’m engaged in. The time comes that always does when I’m wrapped up in shooting, the story comes to an end inside me and I’m ready to put my camera down, I’ve captured what’s here for me specifically to capture, its hard to describe, I’ve caught with my butterfly net and its time to pack up and go.
Go, to the Starbucks right next door.
I get my tea and unpack my computer and plug in and all that stuff and get to the work. A woman then comes up to my table asks if I had just been next door taking photos and I recognize her as one of the women who were talking to the official looking guy. I get to my feet immediately as she introduces herself as the owner of the motel, the aptly named Americas Value Inn. I shake her hand and tell her how sorry I am, now the emotional connection to the visual story comes together, how it should be, I should always feel the story I’m telling, not hold myself separate to other’s fear and displacement and destruction. I don’t have to internalize it, that would eventually become immobilizing, but definitely feel it and then share it, and then release.
The woman is lovely and small and strong, her name is Hemma and we talk of the reality of the last twenty years of her life is gone in a hot instant, the motel was her business and her family’s business, but also their home. Hemma speaks of the responsibility to her aged parents, her former employees, her community. I speak back about what I’m doing with this project, why I was taking photos, holding the space of compassionate listening and witnessing. I spoke of my belief that tragedy gave community a whole new level of meaning, disaster transcending connections with one’s neighbors and family members.
Hemma’s daughter walked up at one point, Nikki is her name and also lovely in her strength and listening, watching her mother and myself speak and connect in that moment. I asked f Hemma would be willing to be interviewed; she had so much to do, not the right time. I gave her my card and said that if she changed her mind, to please call, I’d love it if she were a part of the project.
But Hemma and her daughter Nikki are part of the project, the three of us connected here at Starbucks, we spoke with understanding and interest, we looked into each other’s eyes and saw a commonality there, we felt each other. Hemma showed me her sadness and fear and also her bravery in just a glance and the pitch of her voice, Nikki showed me the love of her mother in the set of her shoulders and her protective gaze, she listened though and became part of the circle.
I am here now writing this and Hemma and Nikki are gone and I don’t feel like I will hear from them again but I came to this Starbucks and their motel to have the experience of documenting and witnessing a piece of their story today.
This is what my day is about.
This is the nature of refuge.
