The here and now... and what and why

Complacency is a trap. At least that’s what I was thinking when I up and left the comfort of a Yankee prep school gig, where I taught music, amongst other things, for 28 years. There was also that life long career as a composer, musician and artist.

First, it was a year in St. Thomas, USVI, working as a reporter and shooting photography and then, a year in San Agustin Etla, Oaxaca, Mexico.
Time passed.
More time passed and a year back in the Athens of America followed by a hasty return to Oaxaca where it is all happening.
A couple of years in San Sebastian Etla and now, just down the road in San Pablo Etla. Life is good.

Click on an image to see it larger.
For additional photography please visit my flickr page.
You can find my music on Jango (World & latin - Worldbeat) and at iTunes and most online stores.
¡Soy consciente de todas las tradiciones del Internet!
If you are coming to Oaxaca, please contact me for tours or advice.

Santo Domingo

Santo Domingo
The view from Corazon del Pueblo

The hereafter re me

My photo
Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Mexico
Musician, photographer, videographer, reporter, ex-officio teacher, now attempting to be a world traveler

Monday, June 28, 2010

With new eyes - con los neuvos ojos

Now that I am back, I find myself seeing things with new eyes. It is like I am seeing it for the first time. The land has exploded with green and color. Within my sight as I write this, I can see five different colored hibiscus, bougainvilleas, jasmine, gardenias, lantana, spaths and a few things I can't name. It is lush.
But that is not the newness I am talking about. It is like seeing the world anew. My trip north was a whole new visual palette, culture shock of a sort, and I was struck how familiar sights seemed so unfamiliar, surreal.Maybe it is learning to see with a photographer's eye or perhaps it is seeing the world anew every three seconds. The latter being the gist of Blue' valedictory speech in Marisha Pessl's "Special Topics in Calamity Physics." At any rate, things look different.... but good.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It seem that your trip up north have opened your vision at a certain level where you haven t explore yet,or you have forgetten with the time.There is a french painter
(Matisse)who always said that the painter have to look at things like children who open theirs eyes and see things for the first time.
Keep looking!!!:-))))))
Bye!!!
Antonin

Anonymous said...

Nice, Chris.
As your friend, Antonin, wrote if only we all had the special gift of seeing things anew every day (or every 3 seconds!) with a child's eyes and heart. Mencius wrote "the great man is he who does not lose his child's heart". Hmmm, yeah. RM