A Very Short Love Letter to America

This small collection of pictures spans a time period from the beginning of the summer -- to me known as the Summer of Love -- to the end of my travels in the West. Though this period is rather short, I will remember it as endlessly long. How long is the moment that a ball tossed in the air stops and sits before it travels down again? There is a moment that the ball does not move. This is the moment of transition, of reflection; the ball is at once traveling up and traveling down; this is the moment that glances at infinity, that is outside of time, has no beginning, no end and is infinitely short. Therefore the moment is forever. For me, that is the feeling of this period in my life.

This was not a specific feeling, but a general one. It gripped all those closest to me. On the hottest days of the heart, it was always three o’clock in the morning, and we are waiting awake for the first light of dawn. This was a period of restlessness.

Perhaps, one might say that America herself is caught on a brink of anticipation, running without moving towards something we do not know. America (to borrow Mailer's phrase) is pregnant.

I am leaving for Latin America on Sunday, and once I leave, I doubt that I will ever be able to sufficiently restore these feelings of infinite anticipation. After I leave I doubt I will ever be able to wholly return, and perhaps I will not want to. Therefore, these photographs and memories are a last glance at my home. These are my images of America: if they die away, then a part of America for me dies too. But they are alive, and indeed it is tough to hate America looking at the Rocky Mountains. My country has certainly committed barbarities – yes, they are outrageous. But can America be truly obscene if she has produced for me these people and spaces?

Treehouse

The dirt is soft against the feet. That is how you know the trail, even in the dark – like tonight, with a full moon. The woods are wild: a cracked tree, long javelins protrude in the moonlight, fallen stones from the old wall, logs decaying to sawdust, wiry branches kiss your face like sad, chapped lips, spider webs wrap on your skin and taste like long hair in your mouth. About two-hundred yards into the trail, the cars and road are no longer visible. If you stare into the glow of the trees against the black sky it makes you think for a second that you’ll die in the woods, somewhere next to the stone wall, but that it wouldn’t be the worst end, to leave your bones among the leaves. After all, the black sky is august.

Just when these thoughts come, they go, for the awkward turn of the trail opens to the noise of the crowd, somewhere faintly away. Then, ike a phoenix, it emerges into sight; the lights strike first. They are fantastical lights. They shine in a circle. The noise, drums against the sky, strikes too. You move towards the lights and the noise. Even moths travel towards their own salvation, even if it ends up killing them, on a fire; Then they burn and dazzle. So you appeal to the animal and search in the woods; and you simultaneously are the civilization that destroys the animal with those fantastical lights. Curious how the transition between the one and another – man and his animal ancestor – is not difficult. For a moment the civilization and the woods are united. They are one for a moment. Then you move from the wild trail into the party, where your friends greet you with smiles.

Prom

Get Yo Jollies III

She glanced at me. Her face was filled with such a mixture of intimacy and vacancy that I felt guilt. Hers was the sideways, awkward glance that one can imagine between a whore and her client, after they both have dressed. “Goodbye” he says, with melancholy, shame, and satisfaction; “goodbye” I said to those eyes.

Maine

That you might think is wrong. Max did not on most occasions believe that recklessness was admirable. In fact he looked down on that dirty, moonlight class of teenagers who profited on their own wildness. Sex, fire, alcohol! Balls! All were like street chases broadcasted live – to make headlines during the evening news or to sell newspaper ads for facial cream. Recklessness, by most accounts, is not synonymous with freedom. The teenager is a servant to his own identity: he must each night bring himself closer to his own destruction if he want to continue to be alive. You cannot build anything by destroying everything. And when the onlookers tire of his antics, they tire of his life itself, caring not whether he jumps from a ledge to his own doom or whether he just stands there, bamboozled, while everyone walks away to watch the next joker play with guns.

But she was different. Wildness for her was neither statement nor identity; it was a property of her soul. She does not have to be reckless. Or have to be anything. Hence, she could take everything. Perhaps the definitive moment when a girl transitions to a woman is when she realizes that to be good is easy; and that the real challenge is to be bad – and enjoy it. Max had known girls before – yes he had know the young and the good – but woman he knew few...

Mt. Katahdin

...too smart to be destroyed by madness, but too stupid to know that there are fates much worse for great minds than ending life too early: among them, beginning life too late -- passing seamlessly from the protective womb to the protective grave, with no intervening period, and with nothing to show for it.

San Francisco

Oakland

Napa Valley

Point Reyes

...what a curious cat! too free to be a queen, but too beautiful to be a serf. A sphinx, she reclines languidly on a Moroccan rug in my mind, purrs until my heart breaks, and then at night vanishes curling like a wisp of smoke.

Jamba Juice

Aspen

Colorado College