springtime

somehow winter has passed and now spring is underway with fierce winds and unpredictable skies. part of me was sad to see winter end. with the night sky creeping in around 4:30 in the afternoon i felt some solace in the dark hibernation of december, january and february. now the sun doesn't set until close to eight and suddenly the world feels full of people, full of light. the part of me that loves afternoon bike rides and polaroid photo ops revels in this flood of luminosity. but another part of me just feels guilt in my desire for solitude, my want of back to back film screenings and sketching sessions in the comfort of my cave-like room. but i suppose that's what spring is all about. emergence. rebirth. the ability to fully exist and experience life.

so here i am on a sunny saturday afternoon filling myself with coffee and soymilk at milagros coffeehouse. a woman with a messy pseudo-mohawk just drove by in her suv, smoking a cigarette, and a gentle but mangy chocolate pup is wandering the sidewalks, collarless and lost. today doesn't feel any different from any other day in alamosa. beautiful, quiet, colorful and calm. with roughly only three and a half months left in the valley i am at a point where all i can do is emerge, exist and fully enjoy the time i have left in this magical place. this whole experience has been amazingly surreal, like living in a movie or a diorama built inside a blue-lined shoe box. part of me is so ready to pack up and bust out of here. the other doesn't want to ever leave for fear of forgetting everything.

with a compulsive desire to hold my memories in my hands i am embarking on a couple projects to put everything ive seen and heard into beautiful context:

1. i've begun cataloging the very best of my polaroids dating back to the fall of 2004. my plan is to compile the photos into defining categories and then arrange them in a cohesive collection in book form. the book will be a mixed-media compilation of photos, drawings, collage and text together telling the narrative of my personal experience with polaroid photograpahy.

2. i am in the beginning stages of writing a screenplay telling the story of my experience here in alamosa as well as the shared experience of being an americorps volunteer. part of these beginning stages involves me watching a lot of movies that i love to better envision how my film will share narrative tools with other films and how it will differ.

this neurotic need to document stems partly from the recent news that has rattled my vision of the future. i was accepted to san francisco state's cinema m.f.a. program and will be attending the university in august of this year. suddenly i see things only as pieces of larger narratives; images coexisting with sounds; moments of movement within human experience. the three year program will equip me with all the academic and artistic tools i need to further my existence as a storyteller and movie-lover. and on top of it all i get to live in the great city of san francisco.

i feel affirmed, excited and motivated.
nothing has ever felt so right.