four girls

After my mother graduated high school in 1969, she got her first taste of independence: a front desk job at the Hilton downtown and a two-bedroom apartment with four other young women. She talked so much about those times in the last years of her life that she became mired in nostalgia, happiest lost in memory. Recently I found the photos in this post among her albums, and I try to match the stories she had told us over the years with the people in them: parties full of weed and wine, wearing micro-mini skirts to work, dancing late at a club called 2000 (I think) over in the North Side – eventually meeting my father at the Wooden Keg, now a Dunkin Donuts. I never had a god-like illusion of my parents that others may have had about their own; they had always been refreshingly — sometimes painfully — human.

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joy ride

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I heard about this fabled shrine for years, and thanks to Juddy’s Ley Line project, I finally got the chance to see it. Hanging over 376 East in the far end of South Oakland, the shrine is a surprisingly peaceful place to meditate or escape, despite the traffic rush below – a lost cul-de-sac of brick roads and overgrown lots that make you feel as if you are in another time. The only reminder of city life is the amazing view as you stand at the top of Wakefield Street. Roadside America gives the history of the shrine here. She’s even on Facebook.

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jules

Caught in a whirlwind of productivity this past month and now it’s finally winding down. I’ve been daydreaming about a ranch vacation in the Dakotas and Wyoming (I really want to see that part of the country). I am happy with the writing I’ve  done lately, something I haven’t felt in a long time. I’m moving to a different position at my day job starting Monday, and shooting photos somewhere between family’s and friends’ baby showers, confirmations, first communions. A spring full of ceremony, of turning my attention to the outside after a fruitful winter.

self-portrait

masha

melissa

lucy and cj

becky c. and becky r.

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This month’s Unblurred features Sara Rekrut’s “Untitled,” an aluminum, steel, wood and fiber installation. sararekrut.com

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my niece, jules

It’s been an insanely busy month for me – a productive, creative period which at turns makes my head spin and charged with happiness. I’ve shot photos for an upcoming June show, but in between, I’ve taken a lot of Polaroids on the go. My instinct is to save the film for a special project or occasion, but I also think how each day passes, the film will be unusable. Racing out the door from one place to the next, I’ve taken along my trusty Spectra (thank you, Juli!).

a sunday afternoon with masha

in the parking lot of holy child parish on our way to attend a confirmation

signs of spring

on neville island, an unusually warm day

remnants of "rupaul's drag race" monday potlucks

the slopes

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I confess: For years I dreamed of ways to leave you. I wrote to pen pals from Yugoslavia, Australia, Malaysia. I watched Manon of the Spring, got really good at conjugating French verbs. I replaced posters of teen idols with maps. I took train rides to New York, searched for opportunities. I waited for rescue. I hated your overcast skies, your old people, your sports teams, your unemployment. I hated your run-down river towns with nothing to do. I traveled around Eastern Europe, trying to find teaching work and family roots, only to return broke and confused. I called myself a writer, but wasn’t writing anything. Defeated, I figured we should make the most of it. I listened to your streets. I walked through personal history. I forgave my ancestors for never leaving this dirty, broken beautiful place. I still don’t know what the hell I’m doing here, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

[from A Conversation project]

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I dream about you a lot since you’ve been gone. Usually you seem very real, and the things you do in them are things you would have done if you were still alive. Like in one dream, you booked a room at some crappy motel next to a broken-down Ferris wheel, and Kristy, Fred and I had to scramble for money to get us all out of there and home. Or another time, you spent all the vacation money on souvenirs, so we couldn’t enjoy the rest of our trip. Why are you so irresponsible? I said, as if I were talking exasperated to a child. I have to remind myself, even now, that you were a grown woman, my mother.

But last night’s dream was different. I was standing at the top of the stairs of an old house. I heard knocking at the front door and peered down to see a man waiting for me to open it. I couldn’t see his face, but you were standing in the corner looking incredibly sad. Mummy, I said, and I panicked because you were disappearing. That’s not mummy, that’s a man at the door, Kristy said somewhere behind me. I was the only one who knew you were there.

[from A Conversation project]

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One of my favorite weekend games is when we pick a direction and go, no plan, just you and me and the road. Going west into eastern Ohio is like time travel, and I try to imagine what we would have been like if we had met in 1979. We trade the GPS for a map and after only a few years of technical geography, I’ve almost forgotten how to read one. You assure me it’s impossible to get lost in America, but I see how you grip the wheel when we miss an exit. As we drive along Route 65, I see a photo of you and me that has yet to be taken: the two of us leaning against an old car outside a dusty motel. A neon sign, the setting sun, a slice of moon. We are laughing. The map catches in the wind, flies out of our hands.

[from A Conversation project]

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Today Jeff and I drove past the nuclear plant near Industry on our way to a flea market. I never realized how far your commute was from our apartment in Moon to the steel plant in Midland. You told us stories about river rats, swing shifts and trading adventurous food with the guys at work, late night meals of squirrel or bear or venison. Remember when you took us to Niagara Falls and introduced us to chow mein? A group of monks sat in the middle of the dark restaurant silently eating. Paper lanterns shifted lazily over our heads while we speared dumplings with our chopsticks. I was amazed eating in such an exotic place in a different country. I didn’t think about it until now, but isn’t it strange so many Pittsburghers traveled on holiday from one industrial city to another. It’s like we did this so we’d never have to leave the comforts of home.

[from A Conversation project]

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I remember your house like a familiar drive home – knowing no route names or street signs, just landmarks that have stood before my time. In a past life, I am sitting in your kitchen, listening to you tell stories about your trip to the 1939 World’s Fair. I devour the Sara Lee cheesecake you feed us because it is American and convenient. I laugh when you complain in Hungarian. I walk through rooms, looking for the things that remind me of you: the mounted deer heads over the guest room beds, the cuckoo clock by the back door, the ringer washer at the foot of the basement stairs, your wedding portrait from 1928. Your house is a time capsule, and when I need to organize the chaos in my life I open it, knowing everything is in its place.

[from A Conversation project]