 |
The place where I came from 18 June 2004 |
This time, I tried to see everything with new eyes. I've been back to the Philippines at least a dozen times since we left in 1976. It's less like a vacation, I tried to explain to co-workers and friends, and more like going to Grandma's house. Grandma's house just happens to be 7,000 miles away.
I took photos at things that normally wouldn't make me blink twice. Fruit and foliage, signs and buildings, chairs and stairways. Everyday sights that feel like the Philippines, that feel far away and unlike my world back home. With over 200 shots, I'm certain I barely touched the surface, but at least it's my view of the surface. Here are 34 photos of the place where I came from.
|
You belong in the zoo, the San Diego Zoo 14 October 2003 |
Our Saturday was half road trip, half field trip. Rama, Sidra and I drove a couple hundred miles to the San Diego Zoo. They played Connect Four, while I bopped my head to the Shins. We took turns dancing and making faces at people passing by on the freeway.
At the zoo, we picked out our favorite animals and studied their faces with pen and paper. I imagined what life was like behind those fences and, while lounging around in the sunshine didn't look so bad, I decided we were far better off on this side of the fence.
|
Caught in New York 16 May 2002 |
i miss new york, already. i miss the subways and rows of trees and slices of piping hot pizza and photobooth bars, but mostly i just miss my friends.
|
Up where the air is clear 29 April 2002 |
if you ask me how we got there, i couldn't tell you. my eyes were shut the whole way. once or twice, someone would ask, "is christine asleep?"
"no," i'd mutter. and then i'd adjust my pillow and drift back into semi-consciousness.
i only opened them when i heard paul tell chris we missed the turn. we spun back around and approached a street i'd been down a dozen times. suddenly, i was 16, riding in a bus that shook with teenage voices and hormones, on my way to a church retreat.
from our porch, i could see the fence i climbed, the fence that led up the mountain and guarded the lake, the lake where we skipped rocks with boys who caught our eyes.
outside, the clouds hung low. inside, the lamp was just as dim.
we sat on ratty couches, played board games, sipped cranberry juice concoctions and listened to the hip-hop hits of the '80s. we made fun of cosmo, but read it anyway. we walked and walked and walked, met a bookstore owner from austria, walked and walked, bought some trinkets from a leather good shop, walked some more, and laughed so hard i thought my cheeks would explode. we watched almost famous until the scene where kate hudson tells patrick fugit about morocco and he scurries away because we couldn't keep our eyes open any longer. i climbed up to the top bunk and slid inside my sleeping bag.
sunday morning, i saw a bluebird, just a few shades darker than the sky. you don't see birds like that in the city. had i not been looking closely enough, i might have missed it entirely.