a jumbled post: a product of one AM

it is always late at night when i should be resting my body & restoring my mind that a stream of creativity & productivity flows over me, making me want to stay up all night painting, rearranging, contemplating, inventing, generating, planning, 

revolutionizing.

i've been spending time developing, printing, & lovinglovingloving being in the darkroom. 

since the age of 12 when i began taking photos i've dreamt of someday watching them come to live in a darkroom, from the work of my own hands. 

& it's finally happening, & i'm thrilled to see where it will take me.

as it is september, i have been thinking a lot about my late poppy, whose bright baby blues have not glanced my way for far too long. Though it's tough, it's a longing that i feel makes me a stronger person. i look back & miss all that used to be, but i know everything happens for a reason, & someday i might come to understand why his life was cut short.

for now, i'll go on missing him, & living happily as i know he'd want me to.

understandably, the mention of my grandfather gives me a nostalgic feeling of my childhood. which i find myself missing all the time. i certainly had a fun up-bringing--young, beautiful parents, jamming out to the smashing pumpkins in my dad's best friends garage at the age of four, dancing to madonna with my mom & sister, eating PB&J's late at night with my daddyo, & going on all day bike adventures with my sister only to return at dusk to climb in bed & dream of floating on clouds.

do you ever miss the feeling of everything being a mystery, as it is when you're a child?

nicholas' mom mentioned to me months ago that i should always practice recalling events from my past, that when i lie in bed at night unable to sleep, i should pick a year in my life & try to remember as much from it as i can. for, she says, you'll forget it all eventually if you don't make yourself recall it. 

what wonderful advice this was. 

i often find myself trying to delve into my deepest memories & the emotions of my past & transfer them to paper, for when i'm 60, i want to be able to look back & remember the times i picked blackberries in my grandma's backyard with my billion cousins & ate most of them before we could walk the bowl into the house to have grandma bake a pie. even now, at nearly 20, it's hard to remember your life at seven years old.

let us always remember the days of mystery.

(myself & my sister with our soxy, who lived for fifteen years & whom i miss all the time.)