Πάρος, 2023

My grandpa took my grandma on a trip around Europe in the 1960s because she was desperately sad and he still talks about the Mediterranean and the way fish would jump right out of the water and land in his boat, the buckets of whitebait being emptied onto white sheets and so many octopus drying out in the Aegean sun. Symbols of ocean life that I don’t think he realises now only exist in the past; in a place between myth and memory that vendors still carefully lay out for tourists but are secretly imported and thawed out somewhere out of sight.

It makes me sad to think about, that the world he was born into a century ago and believes he still lives in today are two different worlds. It makes me sad to think about how even the world that I was born into is no longer here anymore. I think about the secret places I went to as a child, the fern gullies filled with fairy houses and witches in Dharawal and Booderi country that were burnt away in the fires and have grown back as a ghostly monoculture of white gum. I think about the Bellinger River and the swimming holes we used to share with river snakes and brown turtles that would swim in slow sun-lighted circles. Since our last visit the forest on the other side of the river has been cut down for developments and the brown turtles stopped visiting years ago. The world is changing so quickly and the weight to bear witness feels so heavy sometimes.

Albania 2023.

We took the Dajti Express cable car to the top of the mountains just outside Tirana and hiked by this abandoned hotel, it used to be a Pioneers Camp for the Pioneers of Enver during Albania’s communist era. Apparently it was a popular destination for kids camps and while it’s described as depressing and scary online I felt its energy was very positive, and quite beautiful.

Charlie and me exploring the forest in Albania, 2023. We found an abandoned hotel and in front of it was a theme park with ponies and kids playing and eating theme park treats, it was weird and eery.

We walked through silent forest in Snoqualmie until we could see snow-covered mountains and my fingers were numb.

Every time I visit America I can’t stop thinking about how dualistic it is as a place / concept / culture. I know I’m not the first person to say it and I have no great insight but it is so true and I get stuck thinking about it for hours. The people are so intuitively generous and spontaneous in their generosity that it catches me off-guard, but at the same time they collectively uphold and justify a deeply ungenerous social fabric that isolates and individualises them to the point they all exist in a semi-state of survival.

They are also immune to violence, in the movies they watch, in their schools and streets, in their drug crisis and in their foreign affairs, in a way that is so troubling and difficult to understand as an outsider. I think that immunity has come (at least for the people I know and their specific socio-cultural upbringing) from a place of trauma. They talk about the numerous friends and family they have lost to guns, suicide and fentanyl overdose in a way that is almost guarded against the enormity of admitting that the social system they live in is absurdly violent. Instead they mourn them as individuals and they grieve as individuals…

Anyway I hope no one reads this rambling also Snoqualmie is beautiful country and I whispered *vampire* into the forest as the snow fell silently around us and no birds sang. 

I found this old film from a year ago ; the famous Chicago cityscape and its cloud buildings.

First day back at class today has me feeling like the last few years didn’t happen // like I stepped out of my life for a while and now I’m back and the same baby as before who is ready to study plants and trees.

It’s funny how sometimes a new job or relationship can consume you and make you think you’ve transformed into a completely different person. But then when it ends and those layers start to slowly fall away you realise none of that was actually you, you were just reflecting and you can finally let go of the exhaustion of hiding your own personality.

I always lose myself in other people and projects because I want everyone to love me // have abandonment issues but i’m gonna try to stay on path this time.