What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.~ Gandhi

This weekend, for the holiday, people I know visited Yosemite, Sonoma, parks and places that are wild and full of trees.

I had an appointment to meet someone, a poet and writer named Jonathan, at the Tenderloin National Forest, deep in the wilds of the Tenderloin, on Ellis Street.

There are different layers to the Tenderloin. The outlying circle, like the roughest, visible bark, lies along Polk Street, up to Geary, along Market. As you venture more into the heart, the dense part, the light remains the same but the feeling of heaviness becomes more apparent.

Inside this densest part is the Tenderloin National Forest.

***

My day was to be filled with appointments and later, art gallery openings and champagne and talk with friends, so I dressed for that, not for the Tenderloin. The Saturday afternoon streets were full of men, sitting, standing in groups, drinking from bottles and cans concealed in brown paper bags. Brain chemistries altered—you could feel agitation in the air: a buzz, an electrical charge.

Hey lady, lady. I like your boots.

I normally would choose the old jeans, worn t-shirt. No makeup. Today I regretted wearing an outfit that truly made me look conspicuous. For the first time, I felt uncomfortable in my city, in the middle of the day, in the sunshine. I wrapped my camera strap rigidly around my wrist and hid my Canon in the fold of my black coat.

I like your hair.

You look beautiful today.

Some of the compliments were sweet, well-intentioned and I said thank you. But the sidewalks seemed much longer than I remembered them, as I attempted to look nonchalant but feeling terribly out of place.

A group of men standing across an entire corner, drinking, made me decide to cross the street where I could see no obstacles.

***

That side of the street was shady. I didn’t want to take off my coat and open myself to more scrutiny. It was too warm for the coat though.

Halfway up the block, the sidewalk along the brick wall of an old hotel was covered in votive candles, making a half-circle of low flames and wax. On the brick wall were taped large pieces of paper, some with Xeroxed photographs of a young Hispanic man. The papers had signatures and notes written on them. In amongst the candles were sticks of incense and wilting flowers. A young Latino, dressed in an orange sports jersey, stood silently at the memorial. His look was not quite fierce, not quite angry, but not just sad.

My guilt doubled.

I stood before the memorial quietly, long enough so he would realize that I meant to acknowledge the sight, and him. He didn’t look at me, but then he did.

What happened? I asked.

He got shot in the head, here. Last Friday. He answered quietly. I looked at the delicate script of tattooed writing along the side of the man’s neck. His folded hands bore the signs of crosses inked onto his skin.

I am so sorry for your loss. I said.

It’s okay. He said.

I wanted to stay and talk to him but it was clear I shouldn’t. I wanted to take his photo, not as a bourgeois sightseeing souvenir but in reverence, bearing witness for what human life was here, and what was lost. But in truth I stand worlds away from the life that is lived and also taken on these streets, and so I could not ask.

Tears burned my eyes as I turned my back to the man–perhaps really just a boy–and his candles.

***

Across the street and into another ring of the circle. I passed men sitting along a broken fence, laughing and drinking. Some are almost prone, lounging on an elbow.

A lanky African-American man sides up to me, wearing a headset not plugged into any sort of device. The earpads are covered in black fur. He is holding a small plastic cup filled with beer. His breath is beer.

You look like Hot Sex on a Plate, he says. Can I have your name and phone number? He is close, tall enough to almost spill that beer on the shoulder of my coat jacket.

I tell him my name is Julie. Women say, Don’t tell anyone your real name. But what does it matter? Why would I give him a false one?

You mean like Romeo and Juliet? The Lovers? He insinuates charm.

I guess so, I say. His companions shout out for him to leave me alone. He falls back as I keep walking.

Sex-ayyyyy.

I pass another man on the corner. I like your boots, he says. He means it. I thank him. Have a blessed day, he says.

***

In my confusion, I have passed the Tenderloin National Forest and must go around the block again. Also, I have passed it because the gates are locked and I was looking for a garden, not a gate. I hold the bars, like a prisoner—but locked outside where I am supposed to be. I take some photos through the solid metal bars. Inside I see trees, mosaic art, flowers. The jewel is right there, completely out of reach.

A man with a shaved head, dark eyes, wearing a crocheted taqiyah, a Muslim prayer cap, walks up to me. He sees my desire to get into the garden, my hands on the bars.

You should come back later today, he says. Maybe the gates will be open then.

I can’t, I say. I came here especially for this place but I can’t stay. I can’t come back today.

He pulls out a ring of keys and tries to put one in the lock, to let me enter. Ah, he says. They changed the lock again. I used to have a master but then someone else lost their key so they had to change the locks. We both look through the bars at the carefully tended and obviously loved plants. Just a block away are the men and the booze and the candles and the memory of the dead boy.

Why can’t they just leave it open for us? I ask.

He frowns. Shakes his head. People are animals around here. He points to a piece of litter just inside the gate. They’d rather throw trash on the street even if they’re standing next to a trash can! The junkies, the drunks… they can’t leave this place open because those people would never leave. And then no one would want to come here.

I thank him for trying the lock, for my benefit. We shake hands. His frustration falls away. We exchange names.

Then he wishes me health and happiness… in Hebrew.

You speak Hebrew, don’t you? He says with a smile.

I flunked out of Hebrew class, I say. Feeling somewhat amazed. How did he guess?

He laughs and points to his head. I wear this cap when I go to the mosque to hang out with my friends there, but if you see me again, I’ll be wearing a yarmulke. I’m Jewish.

I say, As long as you have it covered, either way. He laughs.

We both say, I hope to see you again. And we mean it.

***

I meet Jonathan the poet. We walk in a route that takes us past a neighborhood bar on Ellis that will close after Monday. The chain-smoking, weary women come out from the depths of the interior to laugh that since this bar will now become more low-income housing, the drunks will just go to the bar across the street. Closing one bar isn’t going to do anything about the drinking around here, they say with smokers’ gravelly voices, honesty and a touch of sarcasm. We pass a young girl rushing to share a crack pipe with two men, sprawled on the bright Saturday afternoon sidewalk. Minivans glide through the intersection. We cross to the shade and meet an old white man with the beard and belly of a Santa Claus, outside his so-called Palace of Fine Junk. He tells us of his younger years, smuggling Jews out from Eastern Europe. That is why he doesn’t want me to take his photo, he’s a wanted man, he says.

I believe him.

I leave Jonathan, and the neighborhood with its dreams and memories and its tiny beautiful forest and its crackheads and tears and earnest poets. I don’t know quite what has happened to me today, but it’s real and I believe in it.

Sometimes do you ever feel like events and people are hovering out there, waiting for you? Waiting to help you onto the next thing, the thing you’re supposed to be doing?

I feel like that lately, so much so that even though it mostly feels like good things waiting to happen, they are also swirling about so fast, still quite nebulous but also careening. So I find it hard to even describe it, since I’m also waiting to see what’s going to come of it all. I can’t describe it because then it seems like I’m making things up. But I don’t feel like I am.

I didn’t want to wait for things to progress in order to write more—because that might take too long.

I wanted to thank some people who recently have sped me on my way, perhaps unknowingly, providing much inspiration and anticipation for the future.

In no particular order:

Katayoon
Chris
Brad
Ed & Alli
Patrick
The Tenderblog kids
Michael
Eugenia
Donald
Mark
Debi
Amber
Michael
Anne
Jorge
Lex and Justin
Louis
Sally

My, this is a good list. I am so lucky.

Today was the oddest kind of day.

My day started with tears (it happens: a fact of life) and ended in some sort of odd power play.

I visited two churches. Go figure. One was St. Patrick’s on Mission. It was at the low point of my day, when all I wanted was a quiet place to sit and be by myself. I like St. Patrick’s. It’s old, and the light is always soft, and is full of candles and flowers. People quietly visit the stations and pray. It is one of the quietest places I can think of in the city, even more quiet than the library. In the library, despite the hush, people are still bustling around, doing things. Learning. Reading. Here at the church, it is still and still is different than quiet.

Of course I feel so funny about sitting in the pews, but I do it anyway. I sat down and felt like I would cry again from the events in the morning but at least in a church it seems like a place you can cry and no one will mind. Even for a non-believer like me. I feel envious of the people who pray there, so sure in their beliefs. I watch them. They touch the plaster Jesuses and Marys mounted on the columns with fingers touched to their lips first with kisses. How do they do it?

I read out of the hymnal this time. The words are nonsensical to me. My stillness is wearing off. The critical mind is coming back.

I feel invading armies, colonization, lack of tolerance, subjugation of women. Sitting in such a beautiful calm place and so I have to leave.

I go to my intended destination, SF MOMA. I spend hours there, mostly visiting the new photography installation and revelling in the room full of Walker Evans, Berenice Abbott, Steiglitz, Paul Strand. They are photos of poverty, city alienation, hard cement and leaden skies but still through this art I feel the beauty of the images. I am so grateful that SF MOMA has such an exemplary permanent collection of photography that always manages to inspire and make me happy and feel incredibly lucky to be able to see it whenever I want.

I take the photo from the ground floor looking up to the top of the atrium. I still love the grandeur of an old cathedral but this fine, airy space will work to lift my mood as well, without the historical baggage.

***

Coming home on the 71. Today I chose the bus instead of the train. It was at the corner when I crossed, and the driver was kind enough to wait, so I took the bus.

I sat in the back, where there was more room. A few stops into the ride, the bus began to fill and the seats next to me were taken by two young girls, friends. They chatted for several blocks until one of them disembarked. The middle seat was then taken by a young man with a large duffel bag. He found a way to really wedge himself between me and the other woman, touching our sides more than I am used to even on a crowded bus. He did not look at either of us. Did not apologize for sitting on my coat, the little niceties that people make when crammed together because that is the nature of public transportation.

He spread the long, flat, dirty canvas tote bag across his lap. On the side, I felt my coat wiggle. My mind flashed to all of the movies I’ve watched where people get pickpocketed and my imagination ran away with me. He’s picking my pocket! What do I do?

Then I remembered that my phone and wallet were in my other pocket, the one he couldn’t reach. And I felt terrible for assuming things about this young man, to be frank: racially profiling him.

So I looked down, and under the duffle bag I could see that he was masturbating. That was the wiggling. That was why he flattened the bag and flattened himself against us. I don’t think the other girl knew what was going on. I looked straight ahead.

At the next stop, several people got off the bus and I moved to the seat perpendicular to him.

I took his photo.

He pretended not to see me and kept on with his activities.

I took another photo of him: zooming in on his face, his hand in his pants–and this time he looked at me.

I took another photo of him.

He got off the bus at the next stop.

***

I don’t know what to make of all of this today and perhaps there’s no need to anyway. Part of my recurring problem is trying to fit all the things together when there’s no reason to.

Things happen. People have bad days, and go to churches because they are atheists but they need a nice place to sit and let their eyes well up with tears for a few minutes.

They go to museums and see marvelous paintings and photographs and then they get on the bus to go home and things become mundane or worse.

Maybe it’s just that this world is a big big place with too many moving parts.

]]> http://julieliveshere.com/?feed=rss2&p=383 7 http://julieliveshere.com/?p=376 http://julieliveshere.com/?p=376#comments Sun, 01 Aug 2010 01:38:54 +0000 julie http://julieliveshere.com/?p=376

This city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the coursers of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightening rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls. ~ Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

I love to quote this book even though I still have never been able to finish it.

I have not yet mentioned the current overwhelming aspect of my life which will continue to consume me for some months to come: the i live here:SF show this November at the SOMArts Cultural Center. Time is accelerating. Now starts the season when I am more apt to be silently hyperventillating.

I know all of the pieces will come together and it will be fine. I’ve been reading all of the stories again, spanning almost 1.5 years worth of work. Reliving the shoots and reviewing the photos. I am so proud of the people who have participated and grateful to them for sharing parts of their lives and their city with me so I could pursue this project.

Right now the room, the gallery space, scares the hell out of me. It is huge. I know I will fill it with faces and stories. But how? What will the final exhibit look like?

And the overall concept that arches above the faces… the city itself. How do I bring the city into the show and make the gallery feel like a microcosm of San Francisco? I have been making lists of things that feel like the city. I have my ideas of what says “yes, this is San Francisco and people who live here will understand and recognize this immediately.” Elements as seen in the image above: the red curb with DPT stencil, the yellow bumpy things at the curb corners, the stamped street names in cement.

Working with these ideas, and importantly, working within my budget. Figuring out who I know who might be able to help me. It’s exciting and it makes my head spin at the same time.

“A Blessing for One Who Is Exhausted”

by John O’Donohue

When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight,

The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.

Weariness invades your spirit.
Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.

The ride you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.

You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken for the race of days.

At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.

***

Photo taken in Golden Gate Park, in yet another place walked by often yet just discovered.

I don’t remember the context in which I took this photo of my grandmother. Why she has her hands over her eyes like that. I think perhaps that she is tired. What were we talking about? I don’t remember now.

Today she has been gone one year. I didn’t remember the exact day (today) either. My mother reminded me. She says that it doesn’t feel like a year, doesn’t feel like she’s gone. It’s more like she’s away somewhere. She talks to Grammy.

I don’t talk to Grammy. I think about her. Her photo is the icon for my mother’s cell phone number so I see her face when my phone rings. I can still hear the sound of her voice in my head and some of the things she used to say, but we don’t speak now, like how my mother and she speak.

When I looked at this photo, the immediate flash of words revealed was “hide and seek.” A childlike way of being, that was my grandmother. Not so much in a happy childlike way, but in a way where she was the child and you needed to look out for her. And she was tiny. She got very tiny at the end of her life especially.

Hide and seek. Then I think that she’s just hiding from us now. And we are seeking… something.

I do seek. I do. I have been doing it for such a long time, consciously, and before that, not so much. I remember seeking in ways that I knew to be dead ends, false wisdom, let’s-make-believe sorts of ways. Charms and chants and crystals and aphorisms and spells and fervent hopes. Spirals of smoke. My efforts, they all rang so hollow, no matter how hard I tried. I just figured I wasn’t devoted enough. I wasn’t seeking as hard as I could.

Now before bed I read a Richard Dawkins’ book, called The God Delusion. I’ve been reading this book for a long time now, maybe more than half a year at least, and it probably doesn’t sound like the kind of book one should read before bed, that one should be reading poetry or something charming to make way for nice dreams, but in its way I find this atheist text comforting. I read the chapters slowly, often re-reading paragraphs because the thoughts can be quite dense and I realize I’m not comprehending the concepts even though I see the words on the page.

I am not a very logical thinker by nature so I appreciate the way my mind must stretch. It feels good to realize that for no matter how long I am on this earth, I have the unique ability to think, discern and wonder.

Hide and seek. I don’t think about where she is. I’m not ready to do that in a logical way. I am not quite so brave.

She is hidden to us now but someday all will be revealed, whether I understand it or not. Whether I am here to see it or not.

The love remains.

To days of inspiration,
Playing hookey, making something
Out of nothing, the need
To express-
To communicate,
To going against the grain,
Going insane,
Going mad

To loving tension, no pension
To more than one dimension,
To starving for attention,
Hating convention, hating pretension,
Not to mention of course,
Hating dear old mom and dad

To riding your bike
Midday past the three piece suits-
To fruits- To no absolutes-
To Absolut- To choice-
To the Village Voice-
To any passing fad

To being an us- For once-
Instead of a them-

I remember when the musical RENT came out. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I listened to that soundtrack every day for months on end. I wouldn’t be surprised if I listened to those songs for about a year. My life was so different then: I was married. I had a “regular” job in high tech. I owned a car. I was a homeowner with three-bedroom house (including a newly remodeled living room and kitchen) and a rose garden that I was devoted to. I subscribed to Martha Stewart magazine.

But there was something about the songs, the lives of the characters, that captivated me. I wanted their lives, even with their incredible tumult and drama. Sometimes I would get wistful or teary eyed, singing along.

La Vie Boheme was a song that made me yearn. When the song played, it made me realize how much life I felt I was missing. I didn’t have friends that weren’t white like me or straight like me. I didn’t live on beans and rice or scrimp for things I needed. But I was jealous of the people in the song. They sounded alive.

Right now times are so different. My circle of friends and acquaintances today is of every make and model. Poets. Drug addicts. Writers, painters, dancers, film makers, activists, politicians, teachers, gay boys, gay girls, atheists, Buddhists, magicians, yoginis. Most of them are like me, surviving day to day with all the good and bad that brings. I am living a lot closer to the edge, as close to La Vie Boheme as I’ve ever gotten. Yes, financially, as that’s a huge factor. Not having a regular, adequate income makes you grind the gears of your mind. Sometimes the gears grind to a halt and you wonder how you’ll survive. I know people with college degrees and lots of brains who are on food stamps. Some of them want jobs, some do not.

I wake up in the morning and some days I feel tired before the day even begins. I admit it. It’s not that I don’t know what I want to do because I love what I do. When I’m in the groove, whether it’s photography or writing or dancing, I completely lose myself and it’s wonderful to be so immersed in creating and just being. But there’s a pressure to survive that is much more overwhelming than one I was so used to. I can see how people slip through the cracks in our society. I don’t intend to be one, but I can understand how it happens.

I’d never had to count the change in my wallet but now I do. I used to feel torn about it, confused, saddened, because up until recently I never gave a second thought about buying a mascara or a pair of shoes. But now I think about every penny. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Making use of all of the food in my cupboards and refrigerator; I remember all of the food I threw away as soon as it started to look a little wilty. Now that food becomes soup. Good soup. I wonder how many of us are becoming more vegetarians simply because we can’t afford to buy meat as often.

Again, I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

I jump ahead in my mind to the end of my days here on this amazing planet and wonder if I will think then if I made the right choices today.

Today I say yes.

Expecting their first in September. We took photos on a foggy, windswept Ocean Beach and amongst the craggy ruins of the Sutro Baths. The mood and light were wonderful.

It was so difficult to choose a main image to represent the set. I will probably change my mind again but for now this is a favorite.

The rest can be seen here.

Yesterday this photo of Nirmala from her i live here:SF story got picked up by SFist for their Day Around the Bay recap and I’ve been reaping the whirlwind of site views since. I’m so grateful for the exposure and love that this photo was as appealing to others as it is to me.

It’s difficult when you sit with thousands of images in your own little world and it’s impossible to predict what people will relate to. You say you don’t want to figure it out, that you take pictures that are for your own personal enjoyment but still when it comes down to it, you want to know what makes a photo work.

Yesterday I spent most of the morning in a very productive planning meeting with the SOMarts director and curator for the i live here:SF show that will take place at SOMarts this November. I have been finding it difficult to visualize how this show will look and over the past few days, I finally came up with a concept that made sense to me. I have been trying to nail what it was about the project that I mostly wanted to convey: it’s not simply about the static image of a person in San Francisco, nor is it only about their story. Those elements are key, of course, but when I really had to distill what I wanted to show people— it was the process: the meeting, the adjusting, the acclimation and the journey. All in keeping with the context: the city itself.

How do you convey a process when you aren’t performing it at the time? How do you portray a 3D world in a 2D space? I think we came up with some really interesting ideas to present these photography subjects and our time together. I’m excited because I think it’s now all coming together in a much more cohesive way.

As we continue to plan and develop, I’ll write more about the show (but without giving away too many surprises!).

People are so polite when you’re taking photos on the street, and they notice you and try not to interrupt your shot. But I set little traps. I tell them, Oh, it’s okay, go ahead. Like I’m not going to take their photo.

But then I do. Usually they don’t notice. They think they’ve just passed me by with no record of it.

I’ve been doing this more on my i live here:SF shoots. Because the city itself plays such a huge role in my subjects’ lives, and their feeling about the city is what inspires them to participate, it only makes sense that it’s the random encounters with people and not just the buildings that surround us and the streets under our feet should play a part as well.

Emilie stands patiently by the colorful doorway on Haight Street, the one I chose for this particular set of images. We take turns choosing what we’d like to take photos of, with her in them, and I let her in on my candid camera plan. “I do take their pictures, even when I say I’m not going to.” That’s why she’s smiling. We share my secret.

We had passed this young man a block ago, as he was packing up his bedroll and pack, talking to an older woman about the proposed Sit-Lie Law and the controversy it’s causing here in the city. Haight Street in particular is one of the areas targeted by the extra pressure. The young man says the only time he’s been harassed for sitting on the sidewalk was in Los Angeles, but he’s not worried about these sorts of things. And I’ve never been harassed on Haight Street by the people this sit-lie law is supposed to discourage.

You can’t live in a city without people entering the frame of your life. It doesn’t work that way. Whether people cross your field of vision or beg for money or volunteer for a project because they see in it what you do (or more), that’s our physical, tangible world. Embracing it makes your personal world bigger and full of color and experience. (I also love that the top of the doorway in the photo says “Community.” Because that is what it’s all about, isn’t it?)

Speaking of community, Emilie’s story is one I particularly treasure. The honesty and beauty of what she has to say about her life and her city is worth reading and sharing. You can see Emilie’s story here.