What Happens Next
There’s a note to myself in the little Moleskin notebook I carry.
“May 9: Need to start transitioning blog to what happens next.”
I have a little bit of a confession to make: all the posturing and the politics that have consumed some of my posts lately? I know that stuff doesn’t really matter all that much. The bigness of the problems we face far outstrip the capacity of one person, one president, one nation. We need look no further than Burma this week to see that the problems facing one nation can eclipse the capacity of one world.
We are flawed vessels, you and I, so it’s no surprise that the structures we create are flawed, that the work that we do is flawed, that for however great we make our world, the flaw is a part of everything.
Below (one post back), I’ve posted a small audio piece from my trip to the border. I think it came together okay. It’s not the strongest piece I’ve put together, but hey, I’m still learning to do this sound thing. This piece tries to put out there a thing you may not have known about. And I guess that’s what I do: I see things and I echo them so that what someone didn’t know, they can come to know.
What can I say? The story of Texas and Mexico is a story that has worked its way deep into my mind. It is a story I know I’ll come back to, a story that needs to be told and told well. It is a story that confronts the history and mythology of two peoples and two nations, a story written in my bloodline even as it’s splashed gracelessly on cable news banners nationwide.
It is a story I’m still learning to tell. What can I say? I’m a flawed vessel.
———
In eight days’ time I’ll be boarding a series of airplanes, the first for Raleigh, then for London, for Bahrain, for Bangalore. I arrive in Bangalore, incidentally, in ten days; I’ll let you handle that math while I handle a 12-pack of Dramamine.
Transition to what happens next. That was the directive in the notepad. But in a way those things that already hapenned are what happens next. Find the thing, see it and feel it and bring it back with clarity.
I recognize that, ever since Zacatecas in March, I’ve fallen off that train a bit. I’ve succumbed to talking about — and maybe getting a bit too passionate about — the vast universe of things that don’t quite matter. So, let’s start over.
Hi. I’m Joey. Over the next two months I will try to be a vessel. I will try to carry the things I see where I am out into a wider place. There may be things I get wrong, stories I fail to tell well, pictures I don’t quite nail. Not gonna lie: I may succumb to aperture priority mode. But here’s the thing: it’s not just about the pictures and the sounds and the sudden staccato notes of the now sketched roughly on green notepad pages.
It’s about the people we meet, the stories we see and what we can bring back.
I’m hoping to post one more audio piece from the borderlands before I leave. It’s the story of Father James at Our Lady of Refuge Church. It’s the story of how a church found its mission at odds with its nation’s policy.
What happens next? I dunno. But if you keep doing the thing, the thing keeps happening.
-j