posted on Thursday, Jun. 16, 2005 @ 16:59
so. i've been contemplating some things, mostly on my way home today. well, one particularly bizarre subject i'd realized a while ago. that is, this urge that has surfaced in me within the past year to go back to louisiana. not necessarily now, but when i get older and "settle down," if i'll do that one day (it's hard to imagine). i never understood why anyone would grow up somewhere, leave and discover the wonders of the outside world for several years, only to return whence they came.
for some reason, however, i just get a good vibe from louisiana. it doesn't even have to do with rich, cultural, cajun heritage. i was born and raised in shreveport, and you could damn near walk to the texas border from there. the miles on I-20 start over at the TX/LA border, and the exit to nana's house and my old house is number 8. even my grandparents aren't from that deep in.
that's coushatta, la, where nana grew up. the 2000 census reported a population of just over 9,000, so you can imagine how small it was in the 30s. i don't remember where papaw was born, but they lived in pelican for a long time, which is so close to coushatta it would look like the same star. the 2000 census said their population is 780, so i think the mauldins must have founded that place. ;)
anyhoo, the point is, they weren't some crazy cajun people living on big plantations with slaves in the double digits. they were just poor, humble people struggling to get by. nana's told me they didn't have electricity for most of her childhood.
i guess it's just roots, a call of the wild to return to your family. plus i like that louisiana is the only state to have parishes instead of counties. :)
the other thing also involves life-changing ideas. yesterday as i was rooting through reuters.com, i realized when i visit news and gossip sites i always end up looking through every single picture there. i look at many of them multiple times, soaking up every little aspect of them. i think of ways i could recreate that look with my modest 1.6 megapixel camera (having limitations forces you to be creative).
it dawned on me maybe i should listen to the few people who have suggested it and become a photographer. for some reason it's embarrassing to talk about what i could possibly do with my life, presumably since i failed so horribly at my last attempt. taking pictures is the only thing i have a passion for right now, though. as i was explaining to jared, i see everything as photo-worthy, from a parking curb to a rubberband to a stranger.
the first time i knew i had to obtain a camera, a good one, a digital one i could have with me all the time and not worry about film over, was when i lived in the dorms. it was a silent sunday afternoon, overcast, and i was walking up the steep hill of 23rd street, right along the football stadium, on my way to work at PG5. to my left, across the street and atop the hill, i watched birds lined up along bass concert hall's roof's edge. suddenly, they all flew up, completed a semi-circle, then landed in perfect synchronization all along the edge again. i looked around, saw not a single person on that vast area of campus, and knew i was the only person who had witnessed that. that one moment of nature and genetics at its best, the precision in flying out (for whatever unidentifiable reason) and landing again with perfect, even spacing, that moment was gone and would never happen again.
everything in this world is ephimeral. the very moment you are experiencing right now will never exist again. there may be moments quite similar to now, but the very essence of this moment is gone by the time you finish this sentence. something inside me has such a strong desire to document everything that happens. that's why so many of my journals are boring accounts of everything that happened to me in a given day. no, it's not interesting, but this isn't for other people's enjoyment. if someone can read this and be mildly entertained while waiting for a phone call or a commercial to end, that's fine. ultimately, however, this is for me.
when i read the majority of my journal entries, i've completely forgotten those things that happened. jared teased i was the boy from american beauty, but as cheesy as it sounds that's how i feel. i want to remember everything. when i'm 70, i want to be able to look back at my life and reminisce without the worries of memory loss (from which i suffer pretty badly, short-term at least).
so that's that. i've missed half of "charmed" now, so i'd better get to that.