Thursday, October 22, 2009

Detroit...in Photos....

I want Detroit to be on my mind more than it is, truthfully. I'm too busy, I guess, taking care of the decay and failing systems in my own backyard (literally) to remember to check in on this symbol of the rest of the country....I don't need symbols 'cuz I got the real thing....

But something about the gray skies this morning reminds me to check out Detroit via online Time Magazine. I find a short photo essay by Sean Hemmerle, entitled "The Remains of Detroit." My brain begins to wake up as I click past greenish-gray lit photographs of Michigan Central Station. I insert myself into the photographer's shoes -- mine would be getting wet and dirty from rain and detritus abandoned on the floor of the once crowded station, as I lose myself in the glorious light slanting in where the windows and roof used to be.

What are our values, I can't help but wondering, that we abandon people and buildings and other lovely ideals in favor of money in the pockets of a few who made these decisions? The beautiful train station, designed by the same architects as New York's Grand Central Station, opened in 1913, has been devoid of passengers since 1988. A gorgeous theater, with no less magnificent a name than "The Michigan Theater," built in 1926, now has a few cars parked under its ornate ceilings. Acres and acres of manufacturing space now host a few ratty mattresses under broken windows. And too, there are the neighborhoods, with houses missing and untended yards, looking more like abandoned fields than city blocks. (....If I bought a house there, I could fill the yard with summer crops....)

Anyway, I guess I don't need to make any more value statements....The photographs speak well enough on their own....
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1864272,00.html

Friday, October 16, 2009

Lemon blossoms and dog piss....

I am stretched out, eyes closed, on my chaise. My laundry floats and breathes on the line...in and out, up and down, gently swaying in the afternoon breeze. I give in and close my eyes....A thirty page to do list waits for me; no matter how hard I try to ditch it, that list waits patiently like the puppy my Standard Poodle is not anymore....

The other night I dreamed I needed to drive forward twenty feet, pull across a narrow lane into a parking lot. It was my van, dents and old, dusty raindrops and all. The engine started but when I tried to put it into a forward gear, it would only go into reverse. I tried and tried and then I gave in and raced out, driving backwards, onto a busy, four-lane road, which turned into a freeway, which turned into a one-way highway...further and further from my parking spot. I didn't know how to get back there.

This morning I wake with the commitment to make more time -- to steal the time if need be -- for my family, friends, photographs, and anything else which fills my soul instead of robbing it. So this morning, in between working, I also call my stepmother and my aunt, email a couple of friends, and even sort a few photographs....That's how I came to be reclining, in the hot October sun, in my yard.

I'm out there with my eyes closed, seeing nothing but orange behind my lids. I'm drifting in and out of my yard...and suddenly I'm aware of a sweet and lovely smell which is enveloping me, gently carrying me away....Oh, it's so good....I drift around with it for a bit....I realize, ah ha, it is the sweet smell of the sun hitting the lemon blossoms on my little Meyer lemon tree. My eyes stay closed and I am in my yard and I am also floating past my childhood, acres of orange groves and sweet citrus blooming into the night....It's so sweet and good....I don't move. I want it to last forever. And then, without warning, I smell the strong scent of dog urine. I can almost feel it in my nostrils, the acrid stench. It is unmistakable.

At first, I'm confused. My brain fights to regain the sweet citrus magic....Where is it? Did I imagine it? Can I bring it back? I almost laugh when the simple truth hits me: the wind has shifted and now, instead of smelling my delicate lemon blossoms, I'm smelling evidence of my dog's business, lifted by the sun, off the concrete....And I realize once again, it's all a matter of perspective....Just a simple matter of where you're standing and which way the wind is blowing....