can't even remember a day that good. Kodachrome photos are so beautiful; they make me cry. The colors spark this emotional fuse inside my body that few things can ignite: mainly just Kodachrome, shooting into the sun, and...2) Debussy. I've been practicing the piano a ton since I got home, primarily Debussy. "Arabesque #1" (or is it #2?) and "Reverie" and my theme song "Girl with the Flaxen Hair." Debussy definitely does it for me. Not so much when I listen to other people play him though, just when I do. Other people don't understand how he wanted his pieces to sound at all. You really have to put your soul into your playing when you play Debussy, or you just sound like you're playing Clementi or some boring composer from the classical era. For the record, Debussy is also my favorite to sing. Forget jazz--Debussy wrote some of the most gorgeous art songs for piano and voice. Maybe sometime I will sing my favorites for you.
3) Yesterday I took Phoebe (my mom's dog) on a walk around the Lafayette Reservoir. It's a place I frequented as a child: BBQs, walks with my dad, flying kites with my dad, fishing with my dad, a Christmas picture on this tree that grew horizontally for a little while so it's a big, airborne bench now--you get the picture. But last night it was just me, Phoebe, my Holga, and Katie and Kimba running. I started out on the path, the setting sun trickling through the trees on the far hill. Suddenly, I heard someone call out my name. "Lisa!" shouted a vaguely familiar voice. I turned, and it was Ms. Krug, my French teacher from junior high. I couldn't believe she remembered me. "I remember all my students," she said. She reminisced about my talents in French, what a natural accent I
had, how she still shows my "Un Jour Dans Ma Vie" project to her students, and they ooh-and-ah at it, asking if it has to be that good. I say this not to brag, but to point out how good I once was at French. Now I can hardly say "My name is Lisa." I've been wanting to get back into it, I told her, and she told me to read translations of Mary Higgins Clark's books. Great idea! So I'm ordering some off the Canadian Amazon. I told her I'm moving back to New York, that I want to work for the BBC. She beamed. "I always knew you'd do something really cool, " she said. I like to think it's cool too. Ms. Krug provided my first exposure to international affairs, though indirectly. She adopted a girl from Nicaragua--Marita. She is seriously the coolest teacher I've ever had. And I think I was supposed to see her, because she confirmed for me all the paths I'm considering.4) Today I spent the day at my grandma's house, packing up the last of her things. I packed up boxes and boxes of old postcards she'd written to my great aunts. Photos ranging from the 1910s of my grandpa and his gorgeous sisters, to the 1980s when my parents married. Anyone who knows me knows I am fascinated by all things old, and especially old photos and the people they immortalize. I found a wedding photo of Grandma and Papa. Neither is smiling, but they both have a glimmer of satisfaction in their eyes. They are a smashing couple, impeccably dressed. It's a black and white photo, but it looks like my grandma is wearing red lipstick to match her fiery red hair. I wish I'd gotten her red hair.
My dad has decided to nurture my love for photography, so he let me keep two old cameras I found among the remains: a 35mm point-and-shoot Kyocera with a Carl Zeiss lens,
and an Olympus SLR that has a few lenses with it.Right before I started writing this, I was playing Guitar Hero 2, and I played "Sweet Child O' Mine" on expert, and I scored over 300,000 points! I didn't think that was possible, but apparently I rock really hard.
The photo booth photos I posted are from Coney Island, the Wednesday a week before I left New York. That's me and Megan, and then me and Megan with Phil and Dan. Some of the best times of my life. I crave New York so very much. I think I am making a trip there in October, because I cannot comprehend a life that doesn't include a future with that glorious city.
My brother and sister are awfully crabby these days. My sister because she's stressed about going to college. An understandable fear, of course, but she'll be in Provo with me and our older sister and her family, so really she has this amazing, pre-assembled safety net. I didn't have that. I had my sister, who I was not close to at all, and Tom. Then there's Michael, who, at 16-almost-17, feels like my dad thinks he's stupid. This is not the case, but as a hormonally tumultuous young man, he can't seem to shake that feeling.
I know I'm past my teenage anxieties and mood swings because I think my parents are funny now. I used to think they were idiots--the stupid kid. My dad was acting like an idiot today, but the funny kind of idiot. And I just, I, I love them so much. I keep thinking back to when I was a little kid and it feels so recent. I was looking out my grandma's living room window today, watching my brother and dad working outside, and I had a flashback to when I was a little kid and we'd come to my grandparents' house every weekend to play in the pool that had this giant black octopus made out of tile at the bottom and in the yard and maybe do some yard work. And I felt like a kid today. I felt so young and so naive but at the same time so mature and ready for adulthood. It was the oddest feeling.
Life doesn't stop getting better.
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