digital sarah art joy

I found the poem I was looking for

~ 2 minutes to read

Eleven days ago, I was trying to write a poem, but also trying to remember an old poem I'd already written. The poem I wrote: good morning self

Today, I found the poem I'd been trying to remember: Dear Dreamer,

I'd written it for my college application essay, which I also found (and might share in another post?). I found it in an old Passport storage thingy, that I found with an old camera, that I dug out of the closet because the compulsion to buy a new (or rather a new-to-me from 2012) camera. But instead, I opened Impulse Bye and wrote about why I wanted a camera, and how oh yeah, I could use the old camera I have in the closet. Ngl, the compulsion to buy the new-to-me camera (a Fujifilm X-E1) is still strong, but maybe I can just buy a new (old) lens for this old camera and be satisfied for now.

Anyway, I feel like there is a lesson here, maybe:

OKAY I JUST KEPT POKING THROUGH THE PASSPORT AND I FOUND ANOTHER ESSAY where I end it with a quote that I LOVE SO MUCH but have never in my adult life been able to remember who says it, and it says who it's by!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The end of my essay titled "On Being a Packrat" (modeled after Joan Didion's "On Keeping a Notebook":

There appears to be no logical explanation for wanting to hoard seemingly worthless momentos, except maybe one: a quote from Annie Dillard. So why stockpile memories and save them in shoeboxes? “Otherwise, I’d forget everything, and life wouldn’t accumulate, but merely pass”.

The quote is from her essay, "How I Wrote the Moth Essay—and Why", which I don't remember reading, but must have at some point, and am likely going to read again now-ish.

What a roller coaster of an hour. I'm thankful to past me who at some point decided to put all her high school and college work on to this Passport and squirreled it away like the packrat she is. That's why I wanted to buy the new camera actually, because I've been thinking about how I haven't been documenting my life as an adult the way I used to. And I miss that. I miss that creative excitement of taking photos and then looking back at the photos and then editing them horribly in Photoshop. Idk what is driving this feeling, but I'm feeling the need to document my life in this incredibly fucking messy state. I think I'm searching for an answer, but there is no question, just desire to witness.

#reflecting