On Longing Revisited 2018

1) 
"Capacity of objects to serve as traces of authentic experience."



In the summer of 2005 I spent most of my time at the beach. It was there in that environment that i learned how to swim, skim board, and surf. I would fall a lot get cuts on shells and then there was the one time i got a jelly fish stuck to my thigh. One day my grand parents came to pick me up from the beach, but ended up watching me skim board until the sun went down. My grandmother the next day comes to me and says "I saw this and thought of my little sea creature". She said the ocean is vast and you can be as free as you want to and that if i keep riding the waves that come at me ill find something greater inside. Today in 2018, now that my grandmother has passed away i look at this necklace and think of the summer where I persevered, taught myself multiple skills, and earned my grandparents blessing to be me.


2)
"The souvenir reduces the public, the monumental, and the three dimensional into the miniature, that 
which can be enveloped by the body."


This photo which is from my Instagram account does not  look like much at face value. However what an outsider would not know is that this picture is one of the very few that has survived from my child hood home growing up. After leaving for college i would never see this house again. After I left for college my parents divorced and sold the home where I grew up and lived for 18 years. This simple scene of a palm tree is in the backyard of that home, but from this one corner I can see the entire yard in my minds eye. My parents divorce was soul crushing and the loss of my home hurt. But ill always have this simple image of our family's yard enduring the endless florid rain.


3)

"The body is the primary mode of perceiving scale."





Scale is defined as a graduated range of values forming a standard system for measuring or grading something, these values are agreed upon by society This picture is documentation of my personal ritual of only getting a haircut once  a year. Time, is one of these agreed upon values that is not real but man made. The growth of hair can be used to measure and represent time for humans. We cannot physically see time moving forward, we experience time in the present moment in which we live. However we can physically see hair growing over the course of many moments. Hair grows over our perception  of "time" and justifies the claim that time has actually passed.


4)
"The place of origin must remain unavailable in order for desire to be generated."



The curse of childhood is that you eventually grow up. Time flows on and things change, bodies grow, voices deepen, and relationships end. This picture of me and my brother 20 years ago, we were young and innocent kids with nothing but hopes and dreams. Our family was happy and we had what we needed to get by, not to much, not to little. It was a safe and humble haven. But i could not take shelter there forever. My parents divorced and sold our family home. Me and my brother were forced to become men and walk away from our childhood.

5)
Nostalgia cannot be sustained without loss.




This picture of my family brings a tear to my eye. It was one of the best days of my life and i shared it with the people closest to me. I love this picture because it expresses our family dynamic perfectly. Our parents having a blast, me freaking out, and my brother trying to act cool. This picture can only have the power and impact it does because my family is now separated. I can appreciate our being together so much more now because unfortunately we are apart now.


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