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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

Coney Island


On weeks like last one, I would take a D train to Coney Island. Everything could disappear, evaporating with each sluggish stop as the doors clack open and closed. The train slowly empties and the air grows wet. The smell of smoke and steam drifts in at each station until the final one. The platform is nearly empty, as a hush falls over every movement. You can hear your own footsteps on the wet floor, tic tac, tic tac, tic tac.

And then, that first glimpse of the ocean and a sense of relief. You have arrived, and there is no further you can go, just marching along the edge of the world like a patient tiger in an invisible cage. Sure, have some fries at Nathan's. Use the bathroom, look at your strange face in the mirror, splash some water on it. It is still there.

Wander the streets and alleys. Stare at the faces. Close your eyes, listening to the wind and surf and the birds becoming one perfect little song that plays on repeat. Sit on a bench, titling your head from side to side balanced by that wet blue horizon. The world is all of the way back there. You can stay here until it starts to get dark if you like, the trains run all night long.

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