I survived the holidays and all the new year’s wishes of joy and love, especially love.
I’m ready to move on, I’ve packed away the nostalgia, accepted the fact that nothing supported it but emptiness and longing.
The road opened up again, I’ll see where it goes, it is mine alone.
The holidays, Texas and my sister-in-law, my only sister, and an emotional landscape I know too well, a landscape where I get lost and can’t find myself, but also a landscape of family, or the closest to family I can claim on this side of the Atlantic, and which is about to become a loaded field of memories and discarded opportunities, and in the end just nothing.
My sister-in-law lives in a small town east of Dallas and has built a life there, started a family, a business. I could fit in and would probably be able to grow my photo business a lot faster thanks to her connections to the Latino community and beyond. I never will because the last thing I want now is to get closer to what used to be. The road here ended.
I’ll stay away and I’ll dream of much farther away, there is always New York and going back in time there, I was young in New York in the eighties, the grit and the possibilities, but I’ll stay in the Midwest and I’ll keep on taking life a step at a time, I’ll move to St Louis come spring so the kids can enroll in a public charter French immersion school there and I’ll hope for the best, I’ll laugh my head off, I’ll call my friends, I’ll try to earn some money doing what I love, taking pictures, speaking in images, and maybe St Louis will see the business finally take off, and that would be my oh I wish for this year, after healthy happy kids, gratitude in every breath and endless laughter.
Ah, Valerie, Valerie, Valerie. I know it may be impossible to trust you'll be happy -- better than happy -- again. Believe me, I know. From personal experience.
ReplyDeleteBut you will. I am absolutely convinced of that.
Also -- have I mentioned recently that you're a brilliant photographer?
You're a brilliant photographer.
Thank you, my friend!
ReplyDeleteSomehow this post turned out the opposite way of what I intended it to be: a coming to terms with my new reality in acceptance and trustful hope for the future. I am hopeful, excited and scared at the same time at what the road ahead, my road now, will bring.
And I will try to wind it so that it brings us together after all these years! Can't wait to sit down over coffee and talk. And I thank the circus for having given me the opportunity to meet you.
See you soon.