Field Notes From the River
And Isaac digged again the wells of water which they had digged in the days of Abraham his father, and he called their names after the names by which his father had called them. — Genesis 26:18
There is a particular kind of work that looks like looking backwards but is not. It is standing at the edge of what is known and reading the soil for signs of water. It is digging again the wells that were stopped up, and calling things by their right names.
Field Notes from the River is a serialised family history and the lines that connect them to the present. It is built from records, photographs, and the gaps between them. Some of what is here is documented. Some of it is reconstructed from what the documents refuse to say. All of it is true.
Not all of it looks backwards. I write as a sojourner — someone who passes through places rather than belongs to them, and whose work is to witness. Field Notes from the Road is its present tense: where I photograph, and why I keep going. It is the same digging. Only the tense changes.
Good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over
I stop and brace for the field just before I see it. I know what I’ll see.
Reaching for the Seventh Day
I had not actually taken it off the shelf, examined it, and shaken it to see if it swirled like a snow globe.
What the Jungle Couldn't Explain
The upside-down crocodile was taller than two men combined. Martin folded his camera, wiped his brow, and made his way home to Diablo Hill — where what the jungle couldn't explain was waiting for him.
The Corner of Landis and Valley
Standing at the kitchen sink, Fanny quickly grabbed a clean pressed tea towel and buried her face in it to catch the wracking sobs and let the woven familiarity slow her gasping breaths. She dried her eyes when her breathing slowed again. This was a safe moment to release into. Then back to composure and tasks.
The Prize and the Broken Promise
Outwardly, William Clinton Tillotson was a man preparing himself for the most prestigious day of his young life. Inwardly, he was walking through the past.
The Girl at Park 25
She heard Georgiana, her mother's cousin, giving instructions to a student at the piano in the front room, and stepped a waltz in the hall briefly in time to the music, stopping with her hand on the door to her father's office.
She paused.
Then she opened the door, swinging in on an arch while holding the doorknob just like her mother asked her not to.
The Man Who Sailed on the Warmest Day
The grey coal belched from the smokestacks into the harbour and stuck at the back of the throat but it was no match for the sun this time.