Saturday

My Love Affair with Film Because I Cannot Write



I love film, often giddy during develop wait time. It's one of the best feelings really, similar to a laugh fit with a friend, boxcars hooked together forwardly into vast mountain scenery. It's the excitement, the thrill, its how your friend's cheeks have moved, studying their lines, they've deepened over the years, all these road maps, and god damn, their flat white teeth like picket fences in the back where a rose bush grows. And it is the best view for a sunrise really, this backyard and its weeping willow. And you decide then, you love. You love this laughing, this friend. And sentences become smooth and calming and glide in this space because we understand people as landscapes now.

Having a hard time writing lately. My words have been, "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (read short story online here):

"I don't want to go outside. I won't, even if Jennie asks me to. For outside you have to creep on the ground, and everything is green instead of yellow.But here I can creep smoothly on the floor, and my shoulder just fits in that long smooch around the wall, so I cannot lose my way."

This morning I caught myself staring into the open space where my hand ends and the ceiling fan begins. Particles floated in the air when I tilted my head to the right and caught the sun streak from the window.
  
I took the coffee table out of the living room and it now looks like an ocean. I spent hours lining the ocean floor with shoes in tightly knit rows. They all looked like people I needed to entertain because they were in my living room suddenly. 

Hi, Sharron, the blue stilettos, Glad of you to make it, I say. And mouth, Oh god her outfit, at Jeoff, the hiking boots in the first row. Jeoff looks over, nods to confirm her see-through blouse. Sharron who has been socially making her way to the back notices we've been staring. I wave. Sharron winks back. And we all have a fun friendship secret now. 

Got the camera out to document my new friends. 
Then didn't. 

Started writing a story about the demise of a woman befriending inanimate objects instead.
Dialogue is going slowly.

Adrienne Rich's book, The Fact of a Door Frame is split in two parts because of my carelessness with preservation of cherished books in my early years. The spine frayed, the glue and binding literally came apart. The last page is 100 and ends with, "Dialogue" which is originally from, Diving into the Wreck. Listen to an audio file here.

She sits with one hand poised against her head, the
other turning an old ring to the light
for hours our talk has beaten
like rain against the screens
a sense of August and heat-lightning
I get up, go to make tea, come back
we look at each other
then she says (and this is what I live through
over and over) - she says: I do not know 
if sex is an illusion

I do not know
who I was when I did those things
or who I said I was 
or whether I willed to feel
what I had read about 
or who in fact was there with me 
or whether I knew, even then 
that there was doubt about these things"

And then the poem goes on to describe a mermaid whose dark hair streams in black, circle above a wreck.

My new character, Rachel has a lot of yellow tones to her. It's blinding actually, driving into the sun like that. She has the same dream three months straight about becoming a bird with reflective wings, something soft and in your hands, dirt accidentally in your mouth from eating fresh picked berries. I have difficultly defining what she dreams about because its so much to take in at once.

My new character, Marshall is color-blind. He dreams on becoming a fighter-pilot anyway. He discovered dirty photographs at his dad's house in the closet. He showed his friends a really blown out picture of a hairy penis. That summer show and tell, gleeking the farthest, and riding bikes was what you did. You owned your farts and were proud playing ball with your dad. Marshall's new friend, Amond, says his parents sleep in separate rooms.





I recommend using a disposable one-time use camera if you are out with friends and don't want to bring a bunch of equipment. They are fun, cheap, and easy to use. I also recommend the services of Photographx, located in Kansas City, MO for all your film needs.Also CVS on North Belt still has a wet lab. Also you can send your film rolls out to Citizens Photo. Also Digital Labrador, located in the crossroads, Kansas City, for lens rental needs. Very professional and great to rent from. Also The Impossible Project for film. Lomography,a shop and community dedicated to analogue photography.
Cameras like the Diane F+ I want. If you want to go into a store, Urban Outfitters has a great selection.








 




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