© Skip Schiel 2005 |
| A fairly lush night of dreaming, including: showing my 16 and super 8 mm films in the poorly attended afternoon session of some film series, outside, with too much ambient light, an indifferent audience, the facility not well equipped. All the usual signs of my recurring “don’t make any more films” dreams, confirming my decision in the early 1980s to switch from film—hopefully with better results—to photography. And I dreamt of sexually alluring women, in magazines showing coitus and in real life wearing revealing clothing. I’ve resumed my series of photo experiments on the twin tracks of infrared and night. I concentrate on trees, sidetrack periodically onto the theme of house (partly at J’s urging), and might try to branch out in subject from there. So far, the results are mixed. I’ve put some up on the website, which represents another avenue of exploration (using the web generator of iPhoto), and they include my usual odd effects: such as much noise, from too high ISO (sensor sensitivity) and too long exposure, resulting in dotting; placing myself in the frame, as I’ve done with the elm tree series; and photographing during transitional times, so far, the evening, not yet morning. As I was finishing up yesterday late morning, out by the platform, I noticed vehicles parked by the vineyard, decided to have a look, in case workers were harvesting. I met a young man, Latino, who told me there’d be no harvesting for another 2-3 weeks, but they were trimming green from the vines. I wasn’t sure what this meant. I was carrying a large tripod with my tiny camera mounted on it and so he knew my business. He invited me to join them, pointing vaguely in a particular direction. He showed me the gate. I entered. He passed me as I was setting up for a vine photo. Although I tried to follow him, listening carefully for sounds of men talking, although I found discarded jackets and stored lunch boxes, I never found the workers, so this will have to wait for another day. But I considered his warm reception a good sign for further photography. Now for my website, I’ve installed Dreamweaver, added a new section called Live from California, have so far put up tree and house pix, along with excerpts from my journal. No word yet about baby C’s arrival. J sent a photo of herself bulging out, shot thru a mirror, in their kitchen. Weather continues cool and dry, unlike July when they baked. Clearing brush behind the house on Tuesday, L stepped on a yellow jacket’s nest, was bitten in about 8 spots, and is now itching and swelling. She panicked, fled into the house, and doused herself under the outdoor shower to dispel the insects caught in her hair. I helped as I could, mostly by trying to calm her. She thought she might have to go to the emergency room, expecting an allergic reaction. She quickly swallowed a handful of homeopathic pills and spread lotions on bites. She was in shock. I tried to remain level headed by concentrating on my voice and general manner. We consulted books, she rested, D suggested ice to reduce the swelling, and now she seems markedly better. Two observations from this event: bugs in the hair is a terrifying image. Reminds me of Hitchcock’s Birds, there is something primal about this, a fear deep lying and hard to avoid. Secondly, for L, earth mother, to be attacked when tending to the earth is a travesty, a betrayal, or so I read it, or could. I slowly ramble thru my notebooks, not sure what to write about my Israel-Palestine
(IP) experience. I have many ideas, I can feel emotions expand on certain
elements of the experience. So far, the Birzeit University episode resonates
most strongly. But I wonder if this is of sufficiently universal interest
to warrant extended writing. Another equaling compelling (to me at least)
lead is the Ramallah Friends School. But I have already written something
like that, with my Quakers in Palestine essay. Another approach to choosing
the topic might be to imagine an audience, such as other photographers,
or Quakers, or IP activists. And write for that audience. I could imagine
myself pitching a story, much like K does in her work, and follow the
leads generated, even if I have no publisher. In fact, thinking of this
writing more professionally, as something I really could publish, might
bear more fruit. D & E are slated to visit us this weekend, staying the night, maybe all of us attending the funeral service of the beloved Dr. K in Pt Richmond on Sunday. —August 25, 2005 Headway on the writing: I’ve decided, while continuing to pour thru my old IP notebooks, that I will write about 3 topics: Birzeit (because it was and continues to be so painful), Ramallah Friends school (because it was so joyous and surprising), and light (because I refer to it as the main motivation for pursing this project). The last first, light, in two senses, physical and photographic, and the light of wisdom. For both I‘m doing web research, especially fruitful for the wisdom light, trying to get straight all the wisdom teachers that litter that landscape. Beginning with Abraham, his different manifestations, interpretations, names even. The women. The prophets. The Muslim strands. In the background the question: why with all this wisdom is the land so rife with violence? And how might the wisdom traditions shine light on the problem and help solve it? This morning, a photo first—exploiting the first clear morning sky of our trip and a half full moon, I wandered outside in a groggy state, couldn’t see enough to aim my camera, but managed to make a series of time exposures of the trees, some including me. D has a very touching way of putting his reaction to my last set—seeing thru my eyes, as if in my head (empty tho it might be),and asking, who is the wood spirit in the pictures? (me) I should grab those words and add them here.
B, one of my former photo students, wrote to ask how I made the infrared photos. I usually consider such questions a compliment. They show someone is looking, thinking, curious. I replied with an explanation. Another bike ride, my second, this one solo, north on 3rdavenue, into town, back and forth thru town on many roads, return along Coombs road. about 2 hrs, maybe 10 miles, very pleasant and easy. No big hills or strong winds. I am mixed about Napa, find it more or less a typical suburban town, reminding me of Arlington Hts (with its negative associations) but quiet and with some interest historically. It has a river, it has an old section, and it has a jail. With my recent jail experience, I find I tune more closely to jails and prisons. I biked by the jail, located in the courthouse. Probably I’ve been by this site before, but I never noticed until yesterday. I whizzed thru the parking lot, noticing the slit windows which usually give away the true mission of the structure, and passed a guard smoking a cigar. What is his role? How would he treat me if I were off my bike and in cuffs or in a cell? Or dark skinned? Or with a Spanish accent? Today is J’s due date. I think of her often. Reading John Hersey’s The Wall I found a passage about a birth in one of the Warsaw ghetto bunkers. Very painful and protracted, 7 hours. I felt for J and her fears as she approaches this moment. May she—and C—go easy thru the birth process. Any minute now, a phone call, C has arrived! Today is also E’s birthday, so a call is in order. —August 26, 2005 Several dreams—among them with another person we were standing inside an enclosure along the beach when we heard announced and then observed some sharks prowling the shoreline, gobbling up fish. One then a second saw us, lifted out of the water, and peered at us with those penetrating eyes, the mouths languidly hanging open and appearing so innocent. We both worried that somehow those sharks might leave the water entirely and fly to us, eating us as easily as they snapped up the fish. One remarkable aspect of our 4-way friendship [L, D, E, me] is how much connective tissue we experience: D & E and I thru the Auschwitz to Hiroshima pilgrimage. L entering thru the Middle Passage Pilgrimage, but knowing and loving them earlier. Nipponzan Myohoji [a Japanese Buddhist order that builds peace pagodas and conducts pilgrimages] a constant source of mutuality (discussing M for instance, in fact, M and A was a main topic of conversation, how they are stressed by living apart). California a source of connection for L with them, and now with me. Our writing interests. And certainly our politics. After dinner (on the back porch, in the waning light, foul that I’d made [an Arabic dish I learned to cook in Palestine, pronounced “fool”], rice heated up, salad, another in my series of fairly successful salads, but who could fail with such vibrant fresh produce?, a cobbler made from blueberries L had harvested 2 years ago, wine, beer, tea), we read to each other from journals and other writing. D had earlier confessed to me that he’d never finished the memoir he’d begun for his nephews and nieces, wondered why. And that various other writing projects had stalled. I reminded him of the obvious: we don’t have much time left. And he praised me for inspiring him to keep at his duties. I feel I serve D as a goad and guiding light. Which seems odd since when I met him he was primarily that for me. And still is, but not in the work sense, more in the basic goodness sense. I feel as close to him as ever, as much a brother as I’ll ever have, a different relation than that of other close friends I have. Indeed, each is markedly different. With D it is clearly for me a brother relation. Blood bros. In truth I am him and he me, we are twins, in the spirit sense. Our shared experiences, especially those of hardship—Cambodia and Bosnia in particular, Middle Passage Pilgrimage less so but vital—weld us together. And of course, for this I am deeply grateful. For our shared writing, E read from her dream journal, L from her story about hugging a tree at the recent Thich Nhat Hanh retreat, discovering a baby skunk rummaging around her feet at the base of the tree, connected somehow with her mother. D from his journal, about wondering if as a 10 yr old boy he imagined being older, and now, older, can he bring back himself as a boy. I read from my beginning account of Birzeit, writing from my pain, I told them. All this while we yawned, sighed, thought about bed. It was late,. We were hoping to see Mars, closest to earth in some 15,000 yrs, D says, alleged tonight to look effectively the size of the moon. L first, then after waking me, I tried to verify this. We discovered that Mars was indeed bright, but it did not come close to rivaling the moon’s brilliance or size. And the moon currently is one quarter. Turns out to be an email hoax. How many others stirred themselves mid way thru a blissful night to not find Mars looming alongside the moon? —August 28, 2005 |