Letting a Place Happen
By Mary Ann Reilly
1 Jul 2009
In Seamus Heaney's (2007) poem, "The aerodrome," he concludes:
If self is a location, so is love:
Bearings taken, markings, cardinal points,
Options, obstinacies, dug heels and distance,
Here and there and now and then, a stance.
I have long been enamored and intrigued by the people, locations, and circumstances native to Manhattan. Through my camera, I have sought to represent the bearings taken in ordinary lives: a couple out for a ride on a bike, a bridge in fog, a woman beneath an umbrella. Like most things human, Manhattan is a complex place, resisting the ease of categories. At once it is privileged, poor, nomadic, broken, healed, rooted, and common.
Although born in Ireland, I have grown up in the shadow of Manhattan and its rhythms have (in)formed the ways I see and fail to see. What I know about the geography of home has allowed me to look closer at all I don't know. In this manner, the familiar houses the unfamiliar, like an old woman houses her younger self.
William Faulkner noted: "I discovered that my own little postage stamp of native soil was worth writing about and that I would never live long enough to exhaust it." As an emerging artist, Faulkner's advice resonates with certain truth I turn an ear to hear.
This visual record is a testament of the bearings taken, markings noted, and cardinal points recorded. It is intentionally contradictory as stances are made (now and then) against such grain.
Through the lens, I have witnessed people love, be loved, and not. While shooting, I have found myself repeating a line in my head from Kathleen Norris's (2001) Dakota: A Spiritual Geography. She writes: "You have only to let a place happen to you...the loneliness, the silence, the poverty, the futility..." (p. 220).
It is in letting a place happen that I have learned (perhaps unlearned) how to hold still. A challenge that remains often uncomfortable and nonetheless important. This bearing witness is the closest thing I know to what might be called grace. As such it carries both burden and blessing.
Works Cited
Heaney, S. (2007). District and circle. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux.
Norris, K. (2001). Dakota: A spiritual geography. New York: Mariner Books.
4 responses
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Dorothy Menosky gave props (2 Jul 2009):
Marvelous! Thank you!
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Tom Mertens gave props (12 Aug 2009):
Mary Ann, great story! It's helped focus my day!
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Dariel Quiogue gave props (6 Oct 2009):
nice, this give me ideas!
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dp * gave props (24 Oct 2009):
Great stuff ! Really love the story and photos. Heck Yeah it's RAD. dp
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