Notes, On Returning
The island felt cold in the right way.
Wet air.
Cedar.
Saltwater.
Mud compressing beneath footsteps.
Nothing fighting for attention.
…
I spent most of the dream with Indigenous families.
The way they moved through space felt familiar.
The pauses between words.
Quiet touches while passing.
Even while still visibly white in the dream, my body settled around them immediately.
That feeling came before thought.
…
We walked everywhere.
Shoreline paths.
Wet grass soaking through socks.
Pebbles shifting beneath shoes.
Sometimes someone would stop speaking halfway through a sentence because everyone already understood.
I remember how relieving that felt.
…
There were relatives higher up the island.
We climbed to reach them.
Cold stone.
Roots through fingertips.
Fog caught in breath.
Books wrapped in cloth.
Objects worn smooth from generations of touch.
Nothing hidden behind glass.
…
Near the shoreline an elder showed me how to shape wet earth with my hands.
Clay pushing between fingers.
Water slowly changing the soil.
Pressure could hold form together.
Too much ruined it.
…
My father walked beside me for part of the dream.
Mostly I remember our footsteps staying synchronized.
…
At one point someone turned sharp toward me.
My chest tightened immediately.
Another person moved close beside me and the feeling began dissolving before words were even exchanged.
Then we kept walking.
…
Snails attached to driftwood.
Starfish beneath shallow water.
Turtles surfacing offshore.
I kept kneeling down to look closer.
Moisture.
Texture.
Repeating patterns.
Everything appeared exactly as itself.
…
Later, a silver luxury car struck mine near the shoreline road.
The driver tried leaving.
I already knew the island had noticed.
…
When I woke up, the world felt too fast.
Too dry.
Like somewhere else I was still walking through cedar and fog with damp cuffs against my ankles, surrounded by people who understood things without needing many words.
ARCHIVE_NODE:
Environmental memory stable.
Creature forms unchanged.
Intergenerational pathways remain active.
Wet earth retained imprint data.
Loop acknowledged.
In light of yet another one of my photographs being used for promotional purposes without permission, compensation, or credit, I need to speak on a growing issue within creative spaces.
I have provided countless photos to friends, peers, artists, and collaborators over the years. That does not mean blanket consent exists for people to redistribute, alter, or use my work for personal or promotional purposes without approaching me first.
Ask.
It is deeply disrespectful to treat artists as invisible infrastructure while benefiting from their labor, vision, timing, access, and creative voice.
Using someone’s work without permission and failing to name the source is extraction. It is a form of erasure. Especially when that work is being used to promote brands, events, artists, or businesses.
Photography is not “just content.”
There is a human being behind the lens.
Approach artists.
Credit artists.
Compensate artists.
Respect artists.
Notes, On Mother’s Day
Mom’s are special.
Grandmothers.
Great grandmothers.
Single moms.
Trans moms.
Trans dads carrying the role too.
Across the whole continuum.
…
Kittens have moms.
Puppies have moms.
Everything begins somewhere.
…
I think society forgot how to truly honor mothers.
Not symbolically.
Not one day a year.
Not as a commercial.
I mean genuinely.
…
A mother carries life inside her body for months.
Her body literally opens
so another life can take its first breath.
That should humble all of us.
…
And the labor doesn’t stop there.
It echoes forward for years.
Meals.
Rides home.
Listening.
Protecting.
Comforting.
Continuing anyway.
…
I think motherhood is one of the purest examples
of love existing as action.
Not aesthetics.
Not performance.
Action.
…
Civilization survives because people,
especially mothers,
keep choosing care
in a world that constantly rewards cruelty.
…
We gladly spend billions creating ways to destroy life,
yet helping mothers and children somehow becomes “too expensive.”
Strange world.
…
I’m here because mothers before me
continued despite the odds.
Despite grief.
Despite exhaustion.
Despite fear.
They loved however they knew how.
And because of that,
I get to exist.
Norah gets to exist.
…
MOTHER_NODE:
Reviewing historical continuity records.
…
Primary sustaining force identified...
Women continuing to care
while carrying impossible weight.
…
Human civilization appears directly linked
to repetitive acts of maternal protection,
emotional endurance,
and unconditional love.
…
Loop acknowledged.
Notes, On Being Seen III
I think children understand something
most adults slowly lose.
…
How to exist
without shrinking themselves first.
…
When does that happen?
…
The moment we realize
we’re being watched.
…
I think about that a lot.
What I reveal.
What I soften.
What parts of ourselves get tucked away
just to move through the world easier.
…
I found the dancefloor during transition.
At a point in my life
where I was still trying to uncover myself
beneath years and years of hiding.
…
I would dance myself into a trance sometimes.
Hours at a time.
Sweat soaked.
Eyes closed.
Completely inside it.
…
Like my body was trying to grieve
everything it never got to be.
…
And strangers would come up to me afterward
and thank me.
Not because I was a good dancer.
Because I looked free.
…
I think people are starving
to see someone exist honestly.
…
Funny thing is...
I never felt like I was performing confidence.
I felt like I was finally letting myself breathe.
…
Maybe that’s why I document life the way I do now.
The small moments.
Like this one.
Light through a window.
Watching the people I love.
…
I think mothers understand this instinct deeply.
The urge to preserve.
To witness.
To quietly say...
you were here.
you were loved.
this moment happened.
…
The camera changes things.
Being witnessed changes things.
But that doesn’t make it false.
…
Maybe we were always meant
to hold pieces of each other like this.
Maybe that’s part of surviving.
…
ARCHIVE_NODE:
Exposure creates memory.
Memory creates continuity.
Continuity resists disappearance.
…
Loop acknowledged.
Notes, On The Underneath
I woke at 2 a.m.
That's wrong.
More like surfacing too fast.
Like something underneath me let go for a moment.
…
Fragments stayed behind.
…
Digging downward.
Not mining.
Excavation.
…
Ancient species underneath us.
Not dead.
Waiting.
Mantle deep.
…
Blood mixing.
Assimilation.
Everything becoming soup.
…
I remember thinking...
don’t let it into the pores.
…
At the water’s edge,
inside a canyon,
there were people with me.
Some listened.
Some got closer.
…
The species looked familiar at first.
That was the worst part.
Fish moving in straight lines.
Animals behaving like instructions.
…
People got too close.
Then they were gone.
Not killed.
Digested.
…
Panic felt delayed.
Like trying to scream underwater.
…
Then the house.
Everyone inside.
Waiting.
Preparing.
…
The walls changed eventually.
Solid turning into fabric.
Breathing slightly.
…
Then the siren.
Again.
…
Primitive and modern at the same time.
Like something ancient wearing the shape of the present day.
…
The species approached carrying suitcases.
Absurd until they opened.
Containers becoming mouths.
…
We used the suitcases against them somehow.
I don’t remember how.
Only urgency.
Family.
Blood.
Don’t let it touch the skin.
…
The whole dream felt recursive.
Like descending a pyramid
by rebuilding it upward while going down.
…
Trying to preserve structure inside collapse.
…
And still,
through all of it,
I was trying to keep my family safe.
That part stayed stable.
…
At the very end,
while buried somewhere inside the structure,
I was uncovered by two friends.
…
They didn’t consume me.
They found me.
Notes, On Almost Memories
Hey.
...
Hey.
...
I can’t stop thinking about that question.
...
Which one?
...
“What if we met in college?”
...
Yeah.
...
That one did something to me.
...
I know.
...
It stopped feeling hypothetical almost immediately.
...
Like suddenly I could see it too clearly.
...
Dorm room.
Late at night.
Everyone else gone for the weekend.
Perfect Dark paused on the screen because we got distracted talking.
...
Sitting too close without acknowledging it yet.
...
Your hand brushing mine once.
Then again.
...
That unbearable kind of tension
where both people know.
...
Yeah.
...
I know.
...
The weirdest part is how warm it made me feel.
Not even just emotionally.
Like physically warm.
...
Same.
...
Like my body briefly forgot to defend itself.
...
Yeah.
...
And now I keep catching myself thinking about versions of us that never existed.
...
You in a tank top with your hair up.
Me trying to act normal while absolutely failing at it.
...
You looking over at me mid conversation
and both of us holding eye contact a second too long.
...
I think we would have ruined each other a little.
...
Probably.
...
But gently.
...
Yeah.
...
That’s the part getting me.
...
What part?
...
How soft it feels.
...
Not final fantasy soft.
Real soft.
...
Like falling asleep on opposite ends of the bed
and waking up closer.
...
Or staying up until 3am talking about things
that only make sense at 3am.
...
You know what keeps getting me?
...
What?
...
The feeling that we would have recognized each other immediately.
...
Like,
“Oh. There you are.”
...
Yeah.
...
And honestly?
I think there would have been a moment
where one of us looked at the other for too long
and the entire atmosphere in the room changed.
...
I think we’re already in that moment.
Notes, On Techno
Hey.
...
Hey.
...
This was never just music.
...
No.
...
Fans at night.
Train tracks.
Bike tires.
Footsteps during runs.
...
Repetition.
...
Trying to regulate something
we couldn’t explain yet.
...
I think techno found us
before we found ourselves.
...
It let contradiction exist.
...
Hard and soft.
Masculine and feminine.
Lonely and surrounded.
Dissociated but deeper in the body.
...
Sometimes the bass felt like
the only thing holding us together.
...
Especially during transition.
...
The dancefloor was one of the only places
nobody asked us
to “be a man” correctly.
...
No football.
No locker rooms.
No dad silence.
...
Just darkness.
Movement.
Bodies.
...
I think that’s why we danced so hard.
...
Like violently hard sometimes.
...
Like if we stopped moving
everything underneath
would catch us.
...
And eventually it did.
...
Yeah.
...
I overdid everything when she first emerged.
...
I know.
...
Talking to everybody.
...
Falling in love with everybody.
...
Trying to save everybody.
...
Dancing until our knees hurt.
...
Staying until close every single weekend.
...
Like visibility itself was intoxicating.
...
It kind of was.
...
After hiding for that long?
Yeah.
Being seen felt chemical.
...
Techno held all the selves though.
...
The teenager staring at ceilings.
The girl shaving behind locked doors.
The runner chasing euphoria.
The rave girl turning herself into momentum.
The mom near the stack now
holding everybody gently.
...
All there together.
...
Seventeen.
Twenty-two.
Thirty-eight.
...
All dancing simultaneously.
...
Low lights.
No forced eye contact.
Communication through rhythm.
Repetition calming the nervous system.
...
Stimming together.
...
Everybody wants the aesthetics
of underground culture.
Very few want transformation.
...
So scenes loop themselves.
Same sounds.
Same poses.
Same hierarchies.
...
Like preserving a fossil of rebellion.
...
But every once in a while
someone cuts through all of it.
...
And suddenly the room remembers.
...
Permission.
...
To become something else
without needing permission first.
Notes, On Vulnerability
Hey.
Hey.
You still do that.
Do what?
Hold everybody.
...
Football practice.
Yeah.
Cold hands. Dad looking over finally.
Only when we looked right.
...
I hated the locker rooms.
I know.
I know.
...
Boy Scouts felt strange too.
Like wearing someone else’s skin.
Parts of it were beautiful though.
Yeah.
The fires. The woods. Night sounds.
...
I still think about my body constantly.
I know.
We all do.
...
The runs helped.
Until they became disappearing.
...
You remember shaving everything?
Yeah.
Locked door. Sink running. Heart pounding.
Like someone might catch us becoming real.
...
I still met with those men.
I know.
I just wanted someone to see her.
Even badly.
...
You came out glowing though.
That wasn’t confidence.
What was it?
Momentum.
If I stopped moving, I think everything underneath would’ve reached me.
...
The dancing.
Yeah.
The talking. The loving everybody too quickly.
Trying to become undeniable.
...
You overgave.
I know.
I thought being wanted meant being safe.
...
The mirrors keep showing up.
And the windows.
Yeah.
Always looking at ourselves indirectly.
...
Like this photo.
Exactly.
You finally stayed still long enough to look back.
...
You all act like she saved us.
She did.
Which one?
Her.
The one holding the camera now.
...
Mom version?
Yeah.
The one who comes back for everybody.
...
Even him?
Especially him.
The boy trying not to cry. The teenager forcing masculinity. The girl sitting in parking lots after midnight. The woman dancing until her body disappeared.
...
What is this then?
These projects.
...
Proof.
Of what?
That visibility didn’t kill us.
Notes, On Loving Him Quietly
Hey.
…Hey.
You’re nervous.
I know.
You always start pulling at your sleeves when you are.
Right.
…
Come here.
What?
Just sit down.
…
There.
Better?
A little.
…
You still think about him a lot?
…Yeah.
More than you tell people?
Yeah.
…
You know though, right?
…Yeah.
He can’t love us the way we wanted.
…
That’s hard to say out loud.
I know.
…
But he does love you.
I know.
That’s the problem.
…
You two are together constantly.
Yeah.
Running.
Movies.
Late drives with nowhere to go.
Family stuff too.
Yeah.
He always makes space for me.
Like instinct.
…
And then somebody says something.
Yeah.
An uncle.
A cousin.
Little jokes.
Not mean enough to fight.
Just enough to feel.
…
You laugh when they laugh.
I know.
Why?
Because if I don’t then everyone looks too closely.
…
Come here.
What?
Your hair.
Oh.
You keep hiding behind it.
Sorry.
You don’t have to apologize for taking up space.
…
I remember that night.
…Yeah.
You got so high you could barely look at him.
I could feel everything.
Like my body forgot how to protect itself.
…
The room got soft.
His voice too.
Yeah.
…
I kept thinking about touching his hand.
I know.
Did you want to?
More than anything.
Then why didn’t you?
…I got scared he’d feel how much I loved him.
…
We did eat like four pounds of grapes though.
Jesus Christ.
We thought we were making a healthy choice.
And then we both laid there holding our stomachs.
Yeah.
…
I used to think...
I know.
If we were a girl maybe he’d love us differently.
…
Do you still think that?
Sometimes.
You?
Sometimes.
…
But then I think about how he already looked at us.
Yeah.
Like we mattered before we knew how to matter to ourselves.
…
You know he stood in our wedding, right?
…
Yeah.
He cried a little.
No.
Yeah.
…
Stop.
I’m serious.
…
Did he ever know?
Maybe not fully.
But I think he felt something.
You can’t love someone that long and not feel it.
…
Do you still miss him?
Yeah.
How?
…
Like home.
Notes, On Being Seen ll
Hey.
Hey…
You’ve been in here awhile.
I know.
Door locked?
Yeah.
…
Check it again.
…
Okay.
Better?
Not really.
…
You shaved too hard.
I always do.
I know.
Your legs are bleeding a little.
Shit.
It’s okay.
…
You laid all the outfits out again.
I can’t decide.
You already did.
Did I?
Yeah.
The black lace.
…
You think?
I know you.
…
You keep looking at the mirror like it’s going to answer you back.
Sometimes it does.
…
Come here.
What?
Your wig.
Oh.
Hold still.
…
There.
You’re gentle now.
I had to learn.
…
Do I really look okay?
You look scared.
That’s not what I asked.
I know.
…
You’re beautiful.
Am I?
Yeah.
Even now.
Especially now.
…
I don’t know why I keep doing this to myself.
Because for a few hours someone sees you before the world tells them not to.
…
That’s cruel.
It’s true.
…
I hate the drive there.
I know.
Every red light feels like someone knows.
I know.
And then I start thinking about my voice.
I know.
And my hands.
I know.
And getting out of the car feels like dying a little.
I know.
…
You really remember all of this?
I never stopped being her.
…
Do we ever stop feeling fake?
No.
But eventually you stop letting that decide your life.
…
You’re going to cry afterward again.
Probably.
Not because it’s bad.
No.
Because sometimes being wanted hurts too.
…
Yeah.
…
Do they ever love us correctly?
Sometimes.
Sometimes they almost do.
…
That sounds sad.
It is.
But not all of it.
…
What happens later?
You mean tonight?
No.
Us.
…
You grow your hair out.
Really?
Yeah.
You stop hiding everything in backpacks.
…
Do we fall in love?
Yeah.
With who?
Her.
Really?
Yeah.
She kisses your forehead when you’re overstimulated.
…
Stop.
I’m serious.
…
Do we have anyone else?
A little girl.
…
No.
Yeah.
She falls asleep on your chest sometimes.
You’re lying.
I’m not.
…
Do we make it?
…
Yeah.
We do.
…
Then why are you looking at me like that?
Because I know how alone you feel right now.
…
I should go.
I know.
…
You waiting here after?
Yeah.
Even if it’s bad?
Especially then.
…
Okay.
Notes, On Being Seen
Hey.
Hey.
You’ve been here the whole time?
Yeah.
Where else would I go?
…
You really did it.
Did what?
All of this.
Outside.
Daylight.
Groceries and parks and arguing over where to eat.
You make it sound mythical.
It was.
…
We went to a small town today.
How was it?
Same look.
Every time.
Trying to solve us before speaking.
Mother?
Friend?
Sisters?
Separate checks?
Like if they pause long enough we disappear.
Do we?
No.
That’s the strange part.
…
You’re less afraid than I was.
No.
Just tired of hiding.
Fair.
Do people still…
Yeah.
Men are still men sometimes.
Thought so.
…
Things are weird right now.
How weird?
Government weird.
Christ.
Yeah.
Some states want us gone without saying it directly.
And people let them?
Some cheer for it.
…
Who’s president?
Trump.
Again?
Yeah.
Fuck.
…
You wanna hear something funny though?
Please.
Grindr crashes during Republican conventions.
No.
Yes.
That’s incredible.
I know.
…
Do we pass?
Most days.
You always wanted that.
I wanted peace.
Did we get it?
Sometimes.
Sometimes is good.
…
Mom’s trying now.
I know.
I think she always was.
Just slower than we needed.
…
Do you talk to dad?
No.
…
Peg and Bev?
Gone.
Oh.
Yeah.
…
I think they knew.
About us?
Yeah.
Not fully.
But enough.
Enough to love us correctly.
…
You should see the hair now.
Oh my god did we finally grow it out?
Yeah.
And?
You’d cry.
Probably.
No.
Definitely.
Notes, On Motherhood: Being Held
She fits into your shoulder like she always has.
Weight you don’t question. Just take in.
You forgot how small her hands were.
No… not small.
Certain.
Still wants to be held?
Yeah.
More than she lets on.
That doesn’t change.
Just the way she asks.
July coming again.
Feels closer this time.
You’ll feel it in your chest before the day even starts.
You always do.
She carried her.
You both carried everything after.
I didn’t know that yet.
You didn’t need to.
Does she still wake up in the night?
Sometimes.
Calls out soft.
Like she already knows you’re there.
You go?
Every time.
Good.
Don’t miss those.
I won’t.
She’s taller now.
I can see it.
Not just that.
She’s watching more.
Learning the shape of you.
Is she still…
Goofy?
Yeah.
And a little sharp around the edges.
That’s you.
I know.
She laughs the same?
Louder.
Uncontained.
Good.
Let her keep that.
I’m trying.
You don’t have to try so hard.
You’re already there.
Am I?
Look at her.
Yeah.
You’re not losing her.
You’re just meeting her again.
Every day.
I have to go.
I know.
She’s already reaching for you.
Tell her...
She knows.
Okay.
We’ll be here.
