Someone is waiting

Out there, somewhere

It’s 4am and I wake up to grab a sweatshirt. There’s a chill in the air.

I get up to pee. Check my emails out of habit and go back to bed.

But I can’t sleep.

I think of my ceramics teacher¹. He’s an early riser and he’s probably stirring about right now.

Singing a song to his beautiful large pit bull who wakes shortly after him (sung to the tune of Happy Birthday):

Good morning to you
Good morning to you
Good morning dear Joey
And how I love you

Joey then walks through his legs twice, circling round the kitchen.

They walk out to the back porch and look at the night’s sky. Yesterday morning they saw the space station coming up, like a bright star moving across the sky, shortly before sunrise.

And so, I lay here.

Our baby sleeping between us.
J snoring.
And me thinking…

About our weekend plans
About what I need to get at Costco tomorrow
About my dermatology appointment yesterday
About revealing too much to strangers
About E’s play date yesterday and the potentiality of friendship
About getting old

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Last week, I dropped off two rolls of film at the lab and then got them the next day!

I can’t explain how fun it’s been to take my camera out and snap a few pics. I never know if they’re going to turn out, but I love that element of surprise. Sometimes, I can go weeks without finishing an entire roll, where I’m more choosy of what and when I decide to capture. Oftentimes, I’ll forget and when I get the photos back I’m overjoyed at what came out.

I haven’t gotten a chance to print any out yet, my intention is to choose a few and put them up around the house, specifically in our bedrooms.

I wanted to a share a few here but give more of a background of what was going on during that particular “snapshot” in time.

This is what summer has been like lately: slow, lovely, lots of time in nature and so, so ordinary that it’s felt almost peaceful (if we ignore the random toddler tantrum.) I’m trying my best to focus more on the roses than the thorns.

queens in bloom, 35mm film

Matilija poppies. They’re named after Chief Matilija of the Chumash tribe. There’s a house at the end of our very long road that has the most beautiful, wild garden filled with all sorts of California wildflowers. I love walking by this house in the spring, summer and even into September when different flowers begin to bloom. But my most favorite are the Matilija poppies. I took this shot from below, J says I have the most awkward pose when I take these pictures — not quite a squat, more like a bird with it’s butt / tail sticking out, back dramatically arched.

Imagining Black Diasporas at LACMA, 35mm film

When I first heard of this exhibition, I knew I wanted to go. Too bad we didn’t end up seeing it until the very last weekend before it closed. We sped through it so fast since E was nearing her nap time and was getting agitated, that I can’t remember each and every piece but it was beautiful and I’m so glad I got to finally see it.

a butterfly with tattered wings, 35mm film

J took this picture on one of our walks. We saw this butterfly fluttering along, ever so slowly, and then it stopped for the longest time on this flower and that’s when I noticed it’s tattered wings. They looked frayed, damaged. I assumed it was close to dying. I looked it up and it just means that the butterfly may have gone through something rough, it may have been attacked or hit by a car?

Either way, I found it so interesting that it waited long enough for us to take a picture of it — like literally first I tried to, then J asked if he should do it since he’s so much taller and still it waited while he adjusted the ISO, focused, and snap!

lakeside, 35mm film

We went on our first camping trip a couple of weeks ago! I took this while we were walking down by the lake. We went with one of my friends and her family. She made pupusas, we sat by the campfire, made s’mores of course and E got to see hawks flying round. This short weekend away made me realize how much I miss traveling, and as a Sagittarius with a Sagittarius baby I feel like this is just the beginning.

six geese a-laying, 35mm film

We went to Echo Park lake to ride the swan boats. What I like about having a child is that it forces us to get out, even if the weather isn’t ideal or we’d rather stay home and be couch potatoes. What’s nice about her taking naps still, is it breaks up the day and we do get some rest so it’s not go-go-go constantly. I forgot my sunglasses on this day. It was overcast but then the sun broke through the clouds and eventually I just settled in to having to scrunch my eyes every so often to see. The weather was perfect for the geese though and we were gifted this gorgeous procession just as we were paddling back.

my queen in bloom, 35mm film

E really is my queen in bloom.² She learned how to put her sunglasses on by herself this week, after about a month of trying to split them in half. She also knows how to put on her shoes, can say outside and finally understands what it means. Just yesterday, she slurped soup out of a bowl for the very first time. She picked up the bowl with both hands, and brought it to her mouth and drank. E was beaming, so proud of what she’d done. I almost cried. She’s teaching me patience, more on that in a later post, as she learns how to walk down the stairs. And points to Charlie when he’s sleeping and says sleepyyyy. I mean 🥹😭

I’ve decided to start photographing my ceramics pieces, pairing them with fruit or vegetables. I really love the way the light pours into our kitchen in the afternoons. I’ve made enough at this point that I am currently working on a series of dishes and small platters that I intend to gift to friends and family.

1. I woke up on a Thursday (technically Friday morning) unable to go back to sleep. And all I could think of was my ceramic teacher and the beautiful ritual he has with one of his dogs. Earlier that same night during ceramics he mentioned he goes to bed by 9;30p and wakes up early. I had no idea it was that early.

2. I think this may have been taken with the same roll as the Matilija poppies. What’s harder about analog photography is I never know the exact dates. This is probably why my mom would date every photograph she ever took. But since we haven’t printed any out yet, I kinda lose track of when I take a photograph. Luckily the phone is there to serve as a reference point.