Photographs and journals from July to December 2022

“What an odd thing a diary is: the things you omit are more important than those you put in.” Simone de Beauvoir.

*

Tonight I dreamt I was back in L.A.
I was there, but I wasn’t exactly me — more like a younger version of myself, though not entirely.
I was also who I am now.
I was both at once. I was carrying the wisdom and experience of today, and the lightness of earlier days, before too much had happened.

**

I still find myself daydreaming at times, and I hope this will never change. But it doesn’t happen as often or easily as it once did.
What matters most is that I feel calm, as calm as one can hope to be in this strange, bohemian drifting life of mine.
Free, unattached, and lonely too.
It’s never boring.
A life built to push and test myself, to keep stepping outside of my own comfort.
I used to do it by moving from place to place. Lately it is my mind and my heart doing the wandering.

***

I have a vision of the woman I’d like to grow into. I stand up not just for myself, but for the self I’m still on my way to becoming. I’m getting used to say no to things and people that stand between me, her, and what we believe in.
I carry always with me a small piece of paper with values to live by, a kind of compass for when I lose my way.
It always points me in the right direction.
It gets me closer to her.

****

Everything can be inspiring, I tell myself on the ride home after a thirteen-hour shift at the studio.
The thought comes from something silly I immediately forget.
And so I start making a list in my head:

• The dark silhouette of a building against the colorful night sky.
• Eyes meeting briefly with a stranger’s — a shared, kind smile.
• A word of gratitude from someone I just photographed.
• The awkward silence between you and me when we’re the last ones left.