Photography
In this video, my Papaw is still at home in his La-Z-Boy recliner back at the house. My Mawmaw is in another part of the state, probably in her garden. I wonder what she really was doing.
I felt like this World was already over when I pressed record this day. But, I admired the beauty of what I still held.
In these woods, I grew up. I picked black berries every summer and scanned the grassy floor for snakes.
I stamped through in blue jeans and boots, eager, on the edge of myself. Sweating, laughing. Creating stories with my cousins.
In this moment, If I could crawl back into it, I’d know for certain I’ll move across the Universe to New York City.
That I’d leave some people behind. That I’d bring a few with me. I was sixteen in twenty nineteen. I knew how young I was, and I knew how old everyone else was. I was bored. That’s fine. I don’t regret my boredness. It propeled me into my not-boredness.
When I captured this video, my childhood was ending. Parts of it had been over. Watching this clip breathe is like saying hello to seven years ago. To the people and the mysteries that still only live in that world.
I felt like this World was already over when I pressed record this day. But, I admired the beauty of what I still held.
In these woods, I grew up. I picked black berries every summer and scanned the grassy floor for snakes.
I stamped through in blue jeans and boots, eager, on the edge of myself. Sweating, laughing. Creating stories with my cousins.
In this moment, If I could crawl back into it, I’d know for certain I’ll move across the Universe to New York City.
That I’d leave some people behind. That I’d bring a few with me. I was sixteen in twenty nineteen. I knew how young I was, and I knew how old everyone else was. I was bored. That’s fine. I don’t regret my boredness. It propeled me into my not-boredness.
When I captured this video, my childhood was ending. Parts of it had been over. Watching this clip breathe is like saying hello to seven years ago. To the people and the mysteries that still only live in that world.
I'm a writer and folk singer. I'm also something of a neuroscientist. I left Mississippi for New York City and The World. There is not growth sitting still there in Mississippi as I wanted it. But there is the warmth in exactly that stillness. There is the sweetgum air and the crickets buzzing. The-leaves-rustling-sound is not the same as in New York. The endless cicadas and my so genuine, earthly childlike questions that erupt from the dirt. Mississippi is my Mother and Father and Grandmother and Grandfather. Mississippi is my parent.
Integrate, I try - my desires are split in two inside my body and across the country. And I'm certain I will map my heart across the world more, but Mississippi is why I am me.
I'm twenty-three years old. So, you know I'm learning a lot. My Daddy works on the railroad. I used to sit at the tracks in my car when the trains came by blowing their horns, and wondered two things. Was my Dad nearby, was he tending to some aspect of this train , wherever he is?
Two: where is the train going? I would smile at the graffiti on the Kansas City Railroad cars as they trucked past. Those cars had seen "The World". I had never left the South until one year ago. I wanted to follow them and see the people who painted them.
Now that I've been going, both mentally and physically... I grow new mind rooms to hold new types of tenderness for the quote that's splayed across my undergraduate university's library wall.
"To understand the World, you first have to understand a place like Mississippi."
I have so many stories of Mississippi, because I'm made of them.
Tristan Henderson
My dear friend Tristan is a Texan but he found his way to Mississippi.
He’s a Protistologist and will probably have a Ph.D. soon.
Everyone who knows Tristan loves him and the space he creates.
If you don’t love him, then you just don’t know him.
Joshua
Clearly is my Honey
Clearly is my Honey
Maggie’s Journey
A teddy bear I purchased at Chelsea Flea in New York City. She’s from the 50’s. Stuffed with pure cotton with fur made from goat hair. I ended up washing her later on and redoing her stuffing. Turned out Maggie was a smoker. p.s. Please don’t worry. I didn’t leave her brother all alone - he had a few siblings that aren’t pictured and is in their loving company.
February 2018
A teddy bear I purchased at Chelsea Flea in New York City. She’s from the 50’s. Stuffed with pure cotton with fur made from goat hair. I ended up washing her later on and redoing her stuffing. Turned out Maggie was a smoker. p.s. Please don’t worry. I didn’t leave her brother all alone - he had a few siblings that aren’t pictured and is in their loving company.
Creative photography for “Discourse”
collaboration with tristan henderson + tolú chris amuwa
collaboration with tristan henderson + tolú chris amuwa
Film
Human Beings