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somewhere over the rainbow (and other stories)

  Exactly two years ago I found myself flying through a corner of a rainbow, and landed in Oaxaca, Mexico. It was the last film festival I traveled to, a brutal and sweet experience in the harshest of realities, trying to wrap my arms around the slipperiest industry and failing magnificently. Surrounded by fresh faces and eager eyes I ran from the rooms and into the street time and again, wandering off with the camera in my bag as a companion. I took pictures of a blind man that sang on the same corner every day, of wedding parades, of an old woman waiting to see the dentist.  Literally somewhere over the rainbow, I met the ugliest answers to questions I had been dragging my feet towards for years. Cramming the most delicious food into my mouth, joking at the nightly rooftop cocktail parties, grinning like the Cheshire Cat it was all coming to an end. Actually, it had ended before it even started though - and on the plane back to New York and finally Moscow the bone-crunching undertow
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under the skin

There is a splinter in my thumb, but I cannot find it. As the skin touches a coffee cup, I know something is there. Digging into the skin with the point of a pin I find nothing. It is a phantom, still there. I make E's sandwich, slicing it on the diagonal, almost forgetting a box of juice.

The lunchbox in her hands, she stares up at me in the elevator.
"Pop, my throat has a bad taste." She whispers.
I nod.
"Let's see if it goes away." I tell her as we go outside.
Living here has brought me to doubt everything.

Later she calls me. I need to come and get her, she is actually getting sick.

Downstairs, the sun is fierce on my shoulders and I wrap my jacket into a ball and shove it into her backpack that I carry. Her tights are sagging, as if she lost weight since I brought her this morning. At home, she pulls on her pajamas and wraps the red blanket around herself. I take her temperature, bring the big bowl if she has to throw up. I survey the cabinets, the fridge. We have everything we need.

37.5 but I know it will go up from there.
She falls asleep.



The routine is a familiar one, the first night sleeping very lightly coming back to check on her after she does throw up once. The morning, seeing if her eyes are bright or if she is still under that little gray cloud. By afternoon she is on the mend, but I know this is deceiving. If we take a walk outside, she will get sick again.

I do run to the store, for turnips and garlic and ginger ale if they have it.

Outside, I realize how foreign things still feel here, even after seven years. The pointy black shoes, the slang, the flower sellers, the militia with their machine guns slung across their chests. Inside the house, it is like we are not here. There is no tv, no radio just the sound of English, our music, pens, pencils, computers, guitars. Inside we have a familiar little universe.

I call her, tell her I am already on the way back.
The splinter is still there in my thumb. I remind myself to dig for it again when I get home. At the same time, it feels good, some kind of reminder.







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