varying degrees of light

The library is a nice place to come in to, but I wish they had larger windows. From across the way, I only see narrow windows with the snow angrily swirling around. It feels like Grand Rapids, doesn't it? If the staff condoned spontaneous Fleet Foxes performances, for sanity and beauty's sake, I'm sure that everyone would benefit. How about one song every time someone loses their wifi signal?

This summer, I purchased travel insurance for the cancelled Honduras trip. You may also not know/remember that I arranged to produce a promo. video with Prof. Woodbury and Dr. Kok for $500. Today I met with Dr. Kok to see about the least complicated, and most beneficial way, to carry out that travel stipend. I was never really close to traveling to Rome this summer, but I thought I was. Oh, no big deal. Recent college grad. with a paid trip to Rome. Why, yes. I believe I will travel around for two years.

It was not to be had.

Instead, I go searching through emails and transactions to see if the insurance company, AccessAmerica, actually went ahead and processed our claim. Calling home to see if/when we received a check is frustrating because it's not that mom and I speak different languages, but the overlapping portion of the Venn diagram is represents how we communicate is a narrow space when neither of us wants to deal with the matter at hand. Also, it happened so long ago. Mom, remember that ticket to Honduras this summer? Yep. The one we had to print out and mail to the insurance company? ...yes. Did we ever get anything back from them? ...what? Did we get paid back for that ticket ever? ...no. What? What? And so forth. My voice gets louder because the area outside the library is made up only of hard materials and the noises travel from very far away. Also, I get frustrated.

I need to write. Several things. There are analyses, letters, reflections and prompts scribbled in my agenda to flesh out and present, even if only on here. Yet. Lately. I've been wondering if this - writing - is a selfish exercise. Not that it would lessen my desire for it. There are other actions to carry, other ways to serve. Or should I say, there are ways to serve. And I could spend my time with those but I use a few minutes here and there to write even, again, if only on here. Writing, of the non-personal, non-reflective sort... that is, the focused sort. The sort that has a specific audience in mind... not only can it serve and equip, it is necessary for any community to develop and progress.

The larger question circling my existence lately, here, is in reconciling that service and action with aesthetics and beauty. I believe they must be, and always are, but I'm struggling to actively live both seemingly antithetical emphases. I'm constantly asking myself stupid questions because I firmly believe that growing as a photographer requires a mirrored conviction in an area that has everything to do with... sociology, political studies, journalism and so on. (Photography is, after all, decisions to document.) At the same time, those areas of service and documentation are designed to allow the celebration and action of our fleeting and beautiful lives. And so, in addition to singing in the library, and rereading poems scrawled away in our tiny notebooks, we immerse ourselves in carefully composed and focused pieces of beauty (which means, we major in the humanities, where it is expected of us to dwell on how our souls stir). Sometimes, it feels selfish.