the secret life of jordan petteys...the secret to contentment
“to see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other, and to feel. that is the purpose of life.”
i remember the first time i saw the movie and was floored by walter’s flee from mundane and plunge into extraordinary. i was enthralled by the crisp icelandic air on his cheekbones when he long-boarded down goat trails and the irony in a bland papa johns paper cup before a peach-colored sunset. soccer with the talaban, swimming with sharks and a trek up the alps and no pictures to prove it. there was something breathtaking about watching an incredibly boring man finally grab life by the balls and do something incredible.
four friends drive an old cop car around lookout mountain, turning heads at every bend and screaming to their favorite songs because its cheesy as hell and nobody can hear them. they’re just as “alive” now as they were that morning, too groggy to get out the door until twelve thirty, which is more incredible?
dream job debt free and married by 28 or paycheck to paycheck cubicle and single at 34?
good but not ultimate.
mundane and extraordinary tango to keep life from becoming too exciting, too drab, too cold, too hot, too thrilling, too tiring, too fast, too slow, too predictable.
someday. someday. someday.
on an extraordinarily boring day my sophomore year in high school, i walked into english and observed news stories and magazines exhibited across the room. my teacher invited our class into devastating, victorious, insanely important current events using this wonderful method of communication i’d only been dabbling in. i had trouble fathoming how long i’d lived without seeing the world and knowing about things dangerous to come. that day my heart started beating for everywhere but here.
my freshman year in college i questioned photography’s relevance at all. how can this medium possibly capture something so raw without creating an interruption? will it be enough? i wrote artist statements passed word count.
someday. someday. someday.
my sophomore year in college i questioned whether photography could really convey the whole story. how is this medium possibly capable of explaining what’s outside the lens? will it be enough? i started drawing around the edges.
someday. someday. someday.
im a junior in college now and im questioning whether my voice matters just because it matters to me—how is it possible to allow the medium to speak for itself? now my photographs feel like Bathsheba on the roof, their beauty overthrowing the illustrations and the red pen in the moonlight. i stripped my images down layer by layer so all that’s left is the moment. will it be enough? Bathsheba doesn’t know David yet.
someday, someday, someday mantras since walter watched sean fly into a volcano with a camera taped to an airplane.
i thought i embarked on a quest for life when i gave up the whole drawing closer, finding each other and feelings for something more thrilling and out there.
today i went up to the mountains with my friends like i always do when im home.
this moment passed so quickly i barely had any time to set a composition, fix my settings or check my focus. suddenly unpredictable bikers were riding up hill while long-boarders escaped behind the bend and a few seconds later my friends and i were alone again.
im never guaranteed anything just because i plan for it.
i adore how beautiful simple things are when i stop insisting on making them so complicated.
“to photograph because i love it, things extraordinary and mundane to embrace, to see, hear and love, extend compassion, loosen my white knuckled grip on the future and offer my life as an act of worship to the One who gave it to me in the first place. that is the purpose of life.”
-subject to change tomorrow
