PROJECT: TWO-MINUTES
My mind's default setting and natural inclination is to think in the future. In January 2013, I created a personal project to honor the present by bringing my present moments into focus. Over the course of 16 months, I captured more than 100 two-minute moments. There's no plot, climax, or conclusion to these videos - there's only life, as it happens to be, within the places and times that we move ourselves through to live it.
San Francisco instilled a lesson that I will carry with me my entire life: be true to yourself and respect others who do the same. Where money, success, compliancy, or "normalcy" garners the highest respect in many cultures, it's authenticity that reigns supreme in the Bay. Consequently, it's no surprise that people flooded the streets in celebration when Prop 8 was overturned. Of course it was a victory for LGBTQ equality and love, but it was also a victory for the ability to be true to ourselves, whoever we may be.
One definition of the word 'capital' by Merriam Webster is: "a store of useful assets or advantages." What I love most about this musician, like so many street performers, is a brilliant public display of creative capital. Creative capital can often be overlooked or undervalued in societies where financial, political, and social capital are prioritized. Yet the creative ingenuity and musical ability that flowed into this warm summer evening at 16th and Valencia held immeasurable value.
Jon taught English in Bengbu, China. Years later, we accompanied Jon back to Bengbu, a "town" of 2.6 million people in the north of China's Anhui Province. During the visit, I was in a constant state of disorientation and enchantment. Everything was the same yet nothing was familiar. The sameness of parents holding children, friends laughing, vendors selling goods, and people sharing meals was layered with unfamiliar scents, undeciphered language, and unknown mannerisms. It was a knowing and unknowing in every moment.
We met in 2005 on Irving Street in West Philadelphia, where Stella exhibited one of her greatest gifts. Welcoming strangers like family, I later learned, was one of her core life mantras. Stella commanded love from that very first moment, and we spent the next 9 years together, filling our love with color. When the vet told Jenna and I that Stella's pancreatic cancer had metastasized beyond repair, the three of us spent our final days as a family seeking the celebration of life and the peace of death. We carried Stella on walks through her favorite places, recounted stories of her life, laughed, cried, and cuddled until she passed on February 11, 2014.
California offers a beautiful and humbling spaciousness that's hard to put into words. Maybe it's from the open land, the open ocean, the open minds, or the open energy of it all working together. Whatever it is, the spaciousness seems to follow you wherever you go. And for me, it was always welcome.