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So here’s the thing I learned on my last day in Iceland. The colours on the Icelandic flag represent the majestic and beautiful nature of the island, something they have been proud of since way back in the day (way way back as in when the first visitor got there). The blue is meant to represent the Atlantic ocean, the white represents the snow and glaciers and the red the lava of the active volcanoes. Save that little tidbit for a swank cocktail party, and watch it kill.
Since I am usually taller than the person I am photographing, and I often shoot photos from my eye level or even from an elevated position, I really loved the perspective of shooting from halfway down this staircase outside a very busy metro. It was new. It was Mexico City and it was hot, it made me sympathize for the musician. Why was he dressed like a policeman while he played an accordion in the street?
Photos taken September 2015 with a Nikon D3100 in Mexico City
Sitting across the aisle from me on my flight from Dallas to Mexico City, Ulysses said to me “You go to Tepoztlan. That’s your place. They have Queso ice cream there.”
I was in.
He told me the metro to take to the bus station and which bus to take where. It would be a couple hours. It was a Sunday morning and it was sunny. It was perfection- warm in the sun, with a hint of a chill on each breeze. It was September of 2015 and the town was straight out of a movie, set in another time.
I find myself so angry today about Brussels. Generally, I can keep world events from effecting my mood, but once or twice a year it all becomes too much and you want to throw your hands up and just walk away. If there was another planet to escape to, I’m sure there would be no seats on the spacebus tomorrow. But, I live here and so I have to listen to music until I feel better. I can’t even imagine the grief of living through this, or the fear after surviving it and trying to carry on like life is the same tomorrow.
One thing I notice about myself is the more I travel, the more I empathize. I suppose that should be obvious but it happens without you noticing. I have been lucky enough to go to a few places overseas in the past two years and it’s given me a lot to reflect on. When I was in Turkey, I met people from Belgium seemingly everyday. We travelled together, sometimes for a day, sometimes something as simple and brief as having breakfast on a hostel rooftop with one another. And you leave, you leave and you remember that you, some huge guy from South India with no connections to Europe whatsoever found great conversation with a young Belgian couple over something as trivial as where the jam on our bread comes from each morning. We smile, we shake hands, and we leave closer to one another, and closer to humanity because we realize we’re all out here to see some things, to learn some things, looking for special moments, seeking personal discoveries, and we all want to have the biggest laughs. Nothing feels the same as knowing that you were so far from home, and you made a friend. Kindred spirits.
One day, in early 1996, I was on Church Street and rented Desperado starring Antonio Banderas. That movie, along with the song Mexico by James Taylor formed an impression in my teenage mind of an unrealistically romantic Mexico full of guitar playing mariachi/vigilantes and incredibly beautiful women with impossibly sexy accents. The music was everything. Arguably my favorite song to listen to on the run in Mexico. Exhilarating!
I cued up the soundtrack for the movie when I walked around Mexico and my musical highlight of the country was an evening at Plaza Garibaldi, a square in Mexico City where mariachis of all shapes and sizes and attire bring their gear and best tunes each night. Beers, smoke and song filled the air, until one by one we all dragged our tired feet to the main road in search of taxis at the end of the night, mariachis and revelers, every man for himself. They were definitely upstreaming. And they deserved to.
