Two weeks ago I made a point of riding out to a few of my favorite places before the first real tropical depression rolled in. I thought the rice harvest would be finished and I'd just tool around Hoi An, spending the usual few hours fighting the tourists in the Old Town and prowling for magic until my body gave out, at which point I would down a salt coffee or two and zip on home. I did walk the streets of the Old Town, but I wasn't getting much. There were just too many people. Still, the morning drizzle had given way to a mostly clear sky, and I decided to extend my day and poke around Tra Que Village and take the beach road home. Just a kilometer or two outside of town, on the north side of the narrow highway connecting Hoi An proper to the Cua Dai Beach, I saw a small group of farmers hurry to clean and bag the last of the rice as the wind played with the corners of the long tarps holding the crops. I instinctively pulled over and turned off the bike.
I watched for a few minutes. The wind stopped. I waited. Eventually it started to gust again. I turned the key, ready to flip the power back on and drive, though what I wanted to do was run across the road, say hello and take photos. I waited a few more minutes, watching traffic, ruminating and calling myself a coward. At some point, serendipity intervened. I remembered a practice to which I had committed myself after watching a Sean Tucker video a few weeks ago: be more courageous, he says, especially when it's the last thing you feel like being. Acknowledge the fear, the anxiety, pick it up, and carry it with you as you move forward. Don't let it stop you.
I did not, and I was rewarded. It's important to note, these rewards are not a given. In fact, I think any clear analysis would show the number of "keepers," by which I mean sharp, aesthetically pleasing photos that tell compelling stories and are worth spending a lot of time on is pretty low, even when you do everything right. And I think Sean Tucker would agree. But fortune was with me that afternoon. I flipped the kickstand out, stepped off my Honda, pulled my camera from the same knockoff North Face pack I've been using for a decade, and finally walked toward the small group of farmers that had compelled me to stop.
I'm rusty. It's true. I couldn't help but chuckle when I saw the author bio in a recent photo essay I put together for Terrain.org. He won a Pushcart Prize a long time ago, it reads. And it's true. The year was 2008 or 2009, and I had recently completed the MFA nonfiction program at the University of Arizona. Since then I've helped my son become a man, taught a lot of college writing classes, and learned a hell of a lot about Agent Orange. When the university didn't renew my contract in 2014, I burned through my retirement to keep us sheltered and fed. I tried to write, but I was either too busy, too tired, or too stressed. In retrospect, it's probably a good thing I'd completely given up before the cervical fusion. After the surgery and for most of the two of the years I've spent recovering, I could not sit on a chair at a desk for more than 15 minutes. I turned 50 a few months ago. Most of my hair is gone. My creative production had been almost nonexistent for well over a decade.
In May of 2017, when my son walked across a makeshift stage on the Tucson High football field to collect his diploma, my neck felt strong enough to handle a transcontinental flight. It had to be because my mom, whose spare room I'd been holed up in for the past two years was moving to Portland, Oregon. I spent the last of my savings on a plane ticket and flew to the one place I knew I'd always have work: Da Nang, Vietnam. I've been living and working in Da Nang since the week I arrived. When I'm not teaching, I practice photography, and while I still have so much more to learn, I've reached a point in my journey where I can see the stories around me through a lens and tell them pretty well. While there is no way in hell I'm putting down my camera and writing a memoir, I am ready to put down some words, if only to share what my photos cannot.
GRAPHICPROSE.ORG (right here) will be where it happens, and I hope you'll consider supporting the project through subscribing, donating a few dollars for coffee, or buying fine art prints from the gallery. The photo lab I use in New York does exhibition quality work, and it ships everything flat, between thick sheets of cardboard. They are worth every penny. That's it for now. Please subscribe and comment. You don't need money. You might need love. For GRAPHICPROSE.ORG is a work-in-progress. Tell me what you like or what you hate or just to say hi. For now, this is a one-person project, so you'll be writing directly to me, helping to shake the rust off.
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