recent items of interest

howdy kids, last week i went into g44 and used the imacon scanner (loves it). I spent 8 hours working on building my digital archive. here are two recent things that i have yet to print out in the darkroom. Stuff that may not have a home in a series yet, but has been part of my most recent art practice.

they dont really fit together, and have very different moods, but try not to hold it against me.

k, thanks.

home

Home by Saturday has, for a few years been one of my top 20 songs. There is a very specific memory that it is involved with- When i lived in Japan i felt such longing for home that it would be like a blinding light, some sort of imagined beacon that would guide me back to a life that i had left. I would wake up from dreaming confused as to where i was. I dreamed of my friends and family in Canada, of the places i loved in Toronto - home. But when i returned, home was no longer to be found. Things had changed, loved ones had changed, i had changed, rooms felt bigger and smaller, food tasted different and i couldnt find that one comfort that i had been missing so much, I couldnt find my home. I found instead pangs of nostalgia and a yearning for the land i had left. I was torn in two. Happy and sad simultaneously.
Over time things have adjusted (as they always do) and I kind of feel like i am home again, but the pangs have never left me.
I think i am beginning to understand a new notion of home. I think throughout a lifetime there will be many versions of comfort and love, maybe its a house you grew up in and a school you loved, your first apartment and your favorite restaurant. Or maybe it could be something else, maybe it could be a feeling that you can carry around with you, maybe the light can live inside you and you'll never have to feel homesick again. The latter is my hope for my future. I have been contemplating a move back. But still feeling torn.

My feet are freezing

The weather has finally shown what its made of! Winter has returned. There has always been something about snow that has made me feel nostalgia. The sight of the snow swirling beneath a street-lamp always has the ability to evoke a sense of home. I remember being in japan two years ago. It was the 17tth of January and I wrote the following:

today it snowed a little bit while i was at work. Luckily i was even outside for the event.
Today my class went outside for "outside play". Some of my students were late in getting their coats on so my partner looked after that half of the class while i took the other half with me to change their shoes. we got onto the playground and it started to lightly snow- much to my excitement. You see i am from a land of snow and ice (at least for about 4 of the 12 months) and honesetly, i miss it. I miss the feeling of freezing in my face when i am walking somewhere, i miss how amazing hot chocolate really tastes after you have had a chance to really appreciate it warming qualities, i miss the pretty ice and the pretty snow. I miss home. SO for the 15 nostalgic minutes of snow... I felt really happy.
Maybe i should have moved to hokkaido.