PHOTO OF THE WEEK: May 23-30, 2008
Wary girl in downtown El Paso
Notes from my Journal, September 1986
I am an illegal alien in a strange land.
That’s a phrase they use a lot in the newspaper here: Illegal Alien.
The more I work the more I’m that because I realize that what I am doing here is going to take a long time to do because I know nothing. I have as much unlearning to do as I do learning. That’s the border. You look at it and you think you know what you’re seeing but what you’re seeing is the surface of a storm that’s deep and wide. Maybe that’s life but life, here, seems to me, intensified, if you look hard.
A wary girl. How many generations did it take for her to get that look going?
I’ll keep shooting until I know.
I usually try to interact with people when I am working. I’m really not wanting to steal souls. It’s more like I want to trade them.
Sometimes it’s scary what comes your way.
There’s plenty of reason for caution, here, in this town. Especially on the south side. The south side is another world and, already, I find myself here almost every day. Prowling. Interloping. Illegal. Never thought I’d live here, three blocks from Mexico, deep in the heart of chicanisimo.. Here I am and I’m the outsider, illegal.
OK, I accept.
I’m getting a little wary too. The more I work, the more I learn. Poco a poco.
Knowledge can be dangerous. It can make you wary.
