sight

In class last residency, a month ago now, Z talked about her work with the kids in juvenile detention. She shared her sense of looking at the world differently. This is a vital part of how she understands the significance of her studies here as well as something integral to her work as an artist. So she talked to the kids about this. One young man decided to try it out with his friends as they were hanging around downtown one afternoon. He told Z about seeing the world differently with his friends, and she was so excited and satisfied to learn how this lesson impressed the young man.

In the context of her story, I was excited with her, and understood the significance of seeing the world differently. Out of context, the phrase is a hollow cliche I've heard so many times before I wonder how anyone can wring meaning out of it. It crumbles into dust in my hands.

Since L withdrew from school we have new freedom on the weekends. He's no longer leashed to studying and I've been studying all week. He opened an account with Flexcar and we take short day trips around the state. I tote my camera along.

It's the Pentax K1000 that I bought in high school for an introduction to photography class I started but never finished once I got sick. The last time I was home I used it alongside L's digital camera for snapshots of the family. Gramp offered helpful suggestions. I suspect I am a lousy photographer, especially to his professional eye, but I thought my photos turned out pretty full and interesting. And all those years ago my classmates liked what I was up to. Besides, who's going to see any of it? Me. L. Our cat.

You can see where this is going. (I'm seeing the world differently.)

Once outside the city limits, past the bedroom communities, and where the highway gets skinny, the traffic light, and the landscape morphs, we shudder off worries and confusion. L rests a hand on my leg and I look out the windows. I started seeing the signs. Handmade, sprayed onto roofs, propped up along fences, perched on posts high above the trees. Golf, local fruit and vegetables, horses and hunting dogs, mayors, sheriffs, God loves you, invitations to buy and admonitions against littering, everyone is welcome, free firewood, no public restrooms, next services in 66 miles, eat, tourist attraction, price reduced. I capture them as fast as I can. I have to move quickly; if I wait until I understand the message we've passed it before I can lift the camera. I missed my favorite highway sign "Litter and it will hurt" every single time on yesterday's trip because I was snacking or resting my eyes or, sigh, didn't have the camera wound.

The landscape is other than a pleasant change of scenery. It holds meaning, maybe obvious for the folks living there, sometimes obscured to me, and surprisingly often personal - sprayed on or brushed by hand, maybe even illustrated with a cob of corn or a pansy. I search the view for the square of a sign on a post or hidden among among machinery at rest on a plot of grass. My eyes shift in and out from the vast expanse of the horizon to the details lingering in a blur before gradually coming into focus. Snap! Wind. What's next.

Right now I'm working on speed and dexterity. Sight a sign. Lift the camera. Check the light meter. Focus. Click! Rarely do I have the foresight and flexibility to compose the image in the viewfinder into something aesthetically pleasing. At least, not that I'm aware of. I've made a few experiments with aperatures and shutter speed. Maybe something cool will develop. Maybe once I learn to respond quickly to significance out there along the road, in those other towns and other people, I'll be better able to create something my own out of what I see.

Mostly, it's about looking around, staying alert, being interested in something, noticing difference with an appreciative eye. It's about snatching the messages, & the meaning, as we soar on by. It's about, after my worries are miles behind me (for a few hours, I know) how do I interact with the vast pretty distance that made that so. It's about staying awake. And staying awake with L.

It's become something we share while still being my own. Sometimes he'll notice a sign before I do, or maybe he knows the road we're on and that something special is coming up. I've shown him how to operate the camera (kind of like how he's shown me some html). He says he's fine if I want to sleep. And I believe him. But I can sleep at home, in bed. If we're on the road, and we're on the road together, let's see what's out there.