Forest, Kalaloch, November 2009
A windstorm knocked power out here for 4 days so I spent much of the time out at Kalaloch. Not very productively, seeing as the wind and rain was still knocking the coast around quite a bit. Busywork or maybe just something to do with confronting your tormentor. Loosing, and getting soaked in the bargain. ‘Maybe tomorrow the power will come back on.’ Repeat.
Getting back home there is nothing it that dark to suggest even the invention of the wheel. Knuckling darkness, mind bending. As often as the power goes out here, I don’t know why I haven’t gotten a generator yet. The trips out to the coast helped to counterbalance the long dark nights a little, the animations of the storm and surf repaying the effort even at five am getting up freezing to make a fire outside, as if looking to finish some elemental thought.
Sunday night I had three trips festering in the exposure boxes and just couldn’t wait anymore. I decided to play frontiersman and develop some film. The water comes out of my tap at 5 C, so it was interesting heating up quantities of water on a camp stove and then trying to keep the solutions in the 20 C range. But the difficult part was keeping time in the dark. Counting 10 minutes off second by second is a direct route to sensory abandon, even minor hallucination, like repeating the same word over and over again until it sounds completely alien.
But the negatives turned out well, for what they are, and figured no great loss if they were ruined. But then again, I’m never sure how much I have at stake until the damage is done.