Always when I travel, it’s in the eye of the storm.
I’m in Berkeley. I booked this trip back in December. But in the last two weeks I’ve negotiated a book design contract; shot for bunches of amazing local businesses; started sorting out package pricing; prepped for six weeks of travel this summer; and sent a proof-of-concept copy of my forthcoming book of poems, Couchfucker, to Hampshire College for a Book Arts show. No matter how carefully I plan, everything multiplies at the edges of those travel dates.
I’m here because my mother is close with my sister’s ex-girlfriend, even editing her (my sister’s ex)’s Masters thesis, and this month she (my sister’s ex) is getting her degree. So since my mom was coming out to see her walk, and out means to the Bay Area, where my boy and his family are, it was too good an opportunity to pass on.
And while I’m here, of course I’m taking photographs.
There’s this new account on Instagram I’m half primed to fall in love with, half already in love with, and half annoyed with. It’s called This Day And Every Day: a record of easily-missed, often remembered moments of childhood. Little things that happen always in the eye of the storm.
Obviously. This is my stock and trade.
So what annoys me? It’s clearly the project of a bunch of white people. While every image that comes through is radical in its lifting up of mostly mother-photographers’ perspectives, it reminds me of how few kids of color’s stories are being celebrated this way. I’m sure if I went prowling, I’d find other accounts celebrating children of color, but that’s not my point here. My point here is balance. A new space has opened, to empower, name, and celebrate the maternal eye, and the creators are clearly not reaching out to mothers of color.
My contributions there have been of my brown family. They’re some of the only. This week I put on my other hat, and join my white family. Balance.