Friday, September 14, 2012

I am a Camera.

As I sit here now, in my queen size bed in Paris, reflecting on the last leg of our journey, what, you may ask, is running through my head? 
Not a lot, really. But the host providing such luxurious accommodations for myself and Derek happens to have Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood on his guest room nightstand, and I do happen to be mulling over the line, "I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking,"
It echoes one of the emotional themes I seem to be spending some time analyzing, which is something I'm sure more travelers than just myself struggle with, and surely bonified journalists must really fight with, it is the battle between recording for journalistic integrity and authentically experiencing and participating in your subject. Your surroundings.

My computer broke down in Malta, just after uploading nearly all of the pictures we'd taken on the island and deleting them from my memory card. I became hysterical and slightly manic depressive for a brief moment there. Why? I know the things I did and saw there. 

True, I, personally, have a memory similar to that of a goldfish, one suited for my selected mantra of trying to live in the moment, but one not so particularly suited for photographically memorizing and retaining lifelong memories. It just added another bit of evidence to the notion that I'm putting in this effort here, on this blog, taking these pictures, more for others, than for myself. Looking for validation in the experiences I have rather than satisfaction in just knowing that they did happen, that they existed, that they're somewhere in my memory. 
Amateur psycho-analyzing myself. It's late and I should go to bed. 
It's just a blog.

They are pretty pictures so let's just enjoy them together. The surviving photographic evidence of our trip to Malta, and the beginnings of our French explorations.

Ramla Bay, Gozo. The Red Sand Beach.




The salt pans at our beautiful camping spot. Gozo Gozo Gozo.

Oh hello, good morning, waking up to this for 3 days.

Nail-clipping. In black and white.

My new L'Oreal screenshot.




Man who fell to Earth.

Oli, the German. This is for his unplugged album cover.

I love this picture because Derek is crazy and Anna agrees, Rooftop at hostel on Malta.

View.

I do not "plank"



Grand Harbour, Malta.

View from Mdina.



Grand Harbour.


Wonky view of entrance to Mdina. Fortifications out the ying yang.




And somewhere in here there was a flight to France.
With nowhere to go, we humbly start up a conversation with a woman who was staying at our hostel in Malta at the same time as us, and without a moment's hesitation she insisted we come with her to stay in her home. This woman, her son, and his girlfriend were the kindest, most selfless people to two total strangers. I've been the beneficiary of some nice strangers before but these guys just blew me out of the water. Housed, fed, toured us, all for nothing. Some people in the world. Just amazing.

Moody tea on the terrace. Aix-en-Provence.


Quick trip to Bimont Dam, with Mont St. Victoire in the background. 



Special thanks to our new friends Pierre and Charlotte pictured in bottom corner.





Any good revolutionary must be a good killer.


OH LOOK.





I just love Paris in the fall, don't you?


I am grateful. I am blessed. I am happy. The world is magic. MY WORLD.
More to come.

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