How Do You Fall In Love? by Jeanette Winterson

 

You don’t fall in love like you fall in a hole. You fall like falling through space. It’s like you jump off your own private planet to visit someone else’s planet. And when you get there it all looks different: the flowers, the animals, the colours people wear.

It is a big surprise falling in love because you thought you had everything just right on your own planet, and that was true, in a way, but then somebody signaled to you across space and the only way you could visit was to take a giant jump. Away you go, falling into someone else’s orbit and after a while you might decide to pull your two planets together and call it home.

And you can bring your dog. Or your cat. Your goldfish, hamster, collection of stones, all your odd socks. (The ones you lost, including the holes, are on the new planet you found.)

And you can bring your friends to visit. And read your favourite stories to each other. And the falling was really the big jump that you had to make to be with someone you don’t want to be without. That’s it.

 P.S. You have to be brave.

 

Eduardo Galeano, Writer

Scientists say that human beings are made of atoms, but a little bird told me that we are also made of stories. And so, each one has something to tell that deserves to be heard.
Eduardo Galeano, extract from an interview about his new book Children of the Days.

I so very much believe this ... that everyone is a story, everyone is full of stories.  His interview is fascinating and made me think I should look for this book of his.

 

Laura Young

Laura's words have been haunting me ...

Sometimes I find myself wondering what it would be like if our only labels were our names and all we had to do with our life was figure out how to flesh that out, just that one name.  Stop worrying about being a good mother, daughter, son, neighbor, grandfather, and all the rest of it and just figure out what it means to be "X".

Seems it could take a person their entire life to figure out how to do that well.

She's a photographer, a writer, a river girl, so she writes ... and so much more.

 

Sometimes I find myself wondering what it would be like if our only labels were our names and all we had to do with our life was figure out how to flesh that out, just that one name.  Stop worrying about being a good mother, daughter, son, neighbor, grandfather, and all the rest of it and just figure out what it means to be "X".

Seems it could it could take a person their entire life to figure out how to do that well.

- See more at: http://laurayoung.typepad.com/photography/2013/06/day-38-scraps-all-over-the-cutting-room-floor.html#sthash.xc43GKV7.dpuf

Sometimes I find myself wondering what it would be like if our only labels were our names and all we had to do with our life was figure out how to flesh that out, just that one name.  Stop worrying about being a good mother, daughter, son, neighbor, grandfather, and all the rest of it and just figure out what it means to be "X".

Seems it could it could take a person their entire life to figure out how to do that well.

- See more at: http://laurayoung.typepad.com/photography/2013/06/day-38-scraps-all-over-the-cutting-room-floor.html#sthash.xc43GKV7.dpuf

Sometimes I find myself wondering what it would be like if our only labels were our names and all we had to do with our life was figure out how to flesh that out, just that one name.  Stop worrying about being a good mother, daughter, son, neighbor, grandfather, and all the rest of it and just figure out what it means to be "X".

Seems it could it could take a person their entire life to figure out how to do that well.

- See more at: http://laurayoung.typepad.com/photography/2013/06/day-38-scraps-all-over-the-cutting-room-floor.html#sthash.xc43GKV7.dpuf

Sometimes I find myself wondering what it would be like if our only labels were our names and all we had to do with our life was figure out how to flesh that out, just that one name.  Stop worrying about being a good mother, daughter, son, neighbor, grandfather, and all the rest of it and just figure out what it means to be "X".

Seems it could it could take a person their entire life to figure out how to do that well.

- See more at: http://laurayoung.typepad.com/photography/2013/06/day-38-scraps-all-over-the-cutting-room-floor.html#sthash.xc43GKV7.dpuf

Sometimes I find myself wondering what it would be like if our only labels were our names and all we had to do with our life was figure out how to flesh that out, just that one name.  Stop worrying about being a good mother, daughter, son, neighbor, grandfather, and all the rest of it and just figure out what it means to be "X".

Seems it could it could take a person their entire life to figure out how to do that well.

- See more at: http://laurayoung.typepad.com/photography/2013/06/day-38-scraps-all-over-the-cutting-room-floor.html#sthash.xc43GKV7.dpuf

Sometimes I find myself wondering what it would be like if our only labels were our names and all we had to do with our life was figure out how to flesh that out, just that one name.  Stop worrying about being a good mother, daughter, son, neighbor, grandfather, and all the rest of it and just figure out what it means to be "X".

Seems it could it could take a person their entire life to figure out how to do that well.

- See more at: http://laurayoung.typepad.com/photography/2013/06/day-38-scraps-all-over-the-cutting-room-floor.html#sthash.xc43GKV7.dpuf

Sometimes I find myself wondering what it would be like if our only labels were our names and all we had to do with our life was figure out how to flesh that out, just that one name.  Stop worrying about being a good mother, daughter, son, neighbor, grandfather, and all the rest of it and just figure out what it means to be "X".

Seems it could it could take a person their entire life to figure out how to do that well.

- See more at: http://laurayoung.typepad.com/photography/2013/06/day-38-scraps-all-over-the-cutting-room-floor.html#sthash.xc43GKV7.dpuf

John Szarkowski, a quote

In the past decade a new generation of photographers has directed the documentary approach toward more personal ends. Their aim has been not to reform life, but to know it.

John Szarkowski, photographer, curator, historian, and critic.

To know life.  I thought, 'Yes!  That describes how I approach photography.  To know life, to attempt to capture slices of it, with my camera.

To slip into the midst of it, to disappear, and to come away with images where my presence was forgotten.