Back to the Beautiful

Sandra and I co-created and performed Back to the Beautiful (Cellar), a participatory installation, in Salzburg on November 18, 2017.  The piece primarily took place in Kavernen, a former wine cellar built in 1595 that is now an art space, dug out of a mountain with rock walls, pillars, and vaulted ceiling.  One part took place in Republic, a blackbox theater near Kavernen.

Inspired by the Saalach river as both a site of natural beauty and potential border tension, Back to the Beautiful (Cellar) layers poetic and political video images, participatory encounters with the audience, and moments of live performance around the contradictory motifs of borders and beauty. While grounded in the Saalach, this participatory performative installation also incorporates images and resonances from other sites of border anxiety globally. Back to the Beautiful (Cellar) has been developed by Sandra Chatterjee and Cynthia Ling Lee, in part through Borders Resurfacing, a long distance creative exchange by members of the Post Natyam Collective.

Part of a larger event that involved talks, a "happening" (party), and another performance work, Back to the Beautiful (Cellar) was divided into three parts that were interspersed throughout the afternoon and evening.  While we conceived of the parts as relatively distinct from each other, they ended up blending with each other in interesting ways.

Part I: ritual handwashing + bottling

Part II: interactive installation

Part III: bottle exchange at the Happening

Video loops designed by Meena of footage from the Saalach, punctuated by border images and text, were projected onto two rock walls, one face-on and one at a steep angle.  We also had a soundscape by Varsha Dewan that combined water sounds with sounds of protest (Syrian, Gorkhaland) and people walking in nature.  Together, the video and sound created an atmospheric immersive environment.  In addition, Sandra and I designed several stations that invited audience members to engage with the theme of beauty and borders through different modalities.  The audience was allowed to circulate throughout the room and choose which station to engage with and for how long.

password "B2B"
B2B projection (tech rehearsal) from Cynthia Ling Lee on Vimeo.

The stations were as follows:

(1) Ritual Handwashing

In an intimate act, we washed the hands of audience members with water that we had gathered one chilly November morning from the Saalach, the river that forms the national border dividing Austria and Germany.  We played with the rhythm, tempo, and movement of the water as we washed their hands.  We mentioned scientific research that understands water as holding memories, reminded them the river is a national border, asked them to pay attention to the sensation of the water, and invited them to linger with the feeling and memories of the water as it evaporated rather than drying their hands.  Sandra spoke primarily in German, and I spoke in English.

photo: Monika Urbonaite

photo: Hubert Auer

(2) Videos and Mixing Waters

We set up a monitor with a loop of three short dance-for-camera videos, all collaboratively created by PN members in different configurations: Border Sawal Jawab, Saalach | San Lorenzo, and River Thumri.  Next to the monitor was a table with materials for the Mixing Waters ritual.  The table contained water from the San Lorenzo and Saalach rivers and natural objects such as leaves, rocks, twigs, and moss from both rivers.  The audience was invited to engage in a modified version of my Mixing Waters ritual through written instructions and personal contextualization of each river authored by Sandra and myself, and to end by making a visual arrangement with the objects, which they were asked to upload to social media at #backtothebeautiful.

Here are the videos (not looped):

password "split"

Saalach | San Lorenzo from Cynthia Ling Lee on Vimeo.

password "damodar"

river thumri (working title) from Cynthia Ling Lee on Vimeo.

Border Sawal Jawab from Cynthia Ling Lee on Vimeo.

(3) Texts

The text station contained English and German texts, both poetic and theoretical, that engaged with notions of rivers and borders.  Audience could read the texts and write a response on a large paper posted nearby.

The English texts that we used are viewable here (Sandra, feel free to add in the German ones!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Hmflje-Ew3EHF9mcB1FclQ84yoEB7OyS

(4) Guided Movement Improvisation

This guided movement improvisation drew inspiration from a river score learned from Eiko and Koma.  It included imagining the sensation of water within one's body as well as crossing a river, encountering a significant physical obstacle along the way.

(5) Bottling
Audience members were invited to bottle water, write an answer to a question on a tag, and then tie the tag to the bottle and either take it home or place it on a table.  Bottles on the table would be exchanged with other people later during the happening.

There were three types of water to bottle: Mixed Water (Saalach and San Lorenzo), Saalach Water, and Water that has Touched Many Hands (the water we washed people's hands with).

The questions were as follows (and provided in English and German):
What is hidden beneath beauty?  What are the dark sides of rivers?  What memories does water hold?  What are we supposed to forget?  Do you have a beautiful memory of a river?  Do you have a memory of having difficulty while crossing a border?

The "altar" for the bottles also had a small video projection of Sandra's feet at a river in India.

password: Dudhia

. Camera and editing by Varsha Dewan.

Part III took place in republic (the theater) rather than Kavernen.  We set up the bottles and water along with an invitation to circulate the bottles.  We also shared some bottles with people -- this became a lovely interpersonal process of curating particular messages for specific people as a gift.

photo: Hubert Auer

Saalach | San Lorenzo split screen video

Here's a split screen version of Sandra's and my videos that were created in response to my Mixing Waters poem.  I edited it on the train from Munich to Salzburg, so it's a border-crossing edit!

password: split

Saalach | San Lorenzo from Cynthia Ling Lee on Vimeo.

Questions:
a) Babli's video is a little grainier/noisier than mine -- would it be better to reshoot her video with my phone, or to leave it as is?  (I uploaded a compressed version of the split screen video to make the upload faster, so the overall picture quality is a little degraded, but the difference between our two videos is still comparable).
b) What do you think of the sound and text?  Originally I was going to intercut our voices as in the original poem, but I kind of liked the overlap that occurred when I just overlaid the two soundtracks, so I only adjusted things slightly.
c) Any other responses -- things you particularly liked, that you would suggest changing, etc.

Meena's video loops 4 + 5 + 6 for Back to the Beautiful

Loop 4

https://vimeo.com/240783477


Loop 5

https://vimeo.com/240781253

Loop 6

https://vimeo.com/240780921

Border Sawal Jawab - refilmed!

Here's a new version of Border Sawal Jawab, shot by Meena and performed by Shy and myself.

Border Sawal Jawab from Cynthia Ling Lee on Vimeo.

Cyn's Creative Response 6.2

I got inspired by Babli's assignment #6 to modify my choreography of the San Lorenzo portion of my Mixing Waters poem.  This version is framed for the camera (though I was using my phone, so it was hard to get the perfect angle) and integrates objects from the river.  I filmed two versions, one in front of the windows and one against a plain white wall.

password for both: SL
Version 1:

Mixing Waters Poem: San Lorenzo from Cynthia Ling Lee on Vimeo.

Version 2:
 
Mixing Waters: San Lorenzo from Cynthia Ling Lee on Vimeo.

Questions:
(1) Which of these two do you prefer, and why?  (Personally, I'm kind of bothered by my reflection in the windows version, and the way the white wall keeps changing color throughout in the second.)
(2) What do you enjoy about this version as opposed to the more full-bodied dance version I did?
(3) How might you see this work -- or the dancey one -- integrated with Sandra's study?  How do you imagine them living in the context of the larger "Back to the Beautiful" installation?
(4) Other thoughts?

Shy's Borders Resurfacing Creative Response #6: Water Ritual Remix

This is a remix of Babli's and my water rituals, taking into account some of the themes (especially feet, fences, ritual and words (I didn't find a place for dots because I feel lines is closer to borders though I could imagine how this could be a different thing with dots and instructions on or under the dots)

AT ENTRANCE invite folks to remove shoes (optional - would folks do this?)

Projection:  One of Meena’s loops of water running down and reverse up a wall at or near entrance.  

Step 1 - Ritual footwash There is a large bucket/Tub of river water with a scoop set up, as well as an empty bucket/tub. (or we can keep this handwash if you think folks wouldn’t do it, especially cause it’s cold mid-november)

Audience instructions:

Foot wash

Take the scoop and scoop out water out from the one bucket/tub

Go over to the second bucket/Tub and let the water run over each of your feet into the emptier tub 

Remembering and honoring: Our bodies are about 60 percent water!  

Step 2 - bottling: There is a row of buckets with water and empty little bottles that can be closed.

Audience instructions:

Bottling

Fill one of the little bottles with water.

About 71 percent of the Earth’s surface is covered by water.

Step 3: Memory/label. ]

Audience instructions:

Memories

Hold the bottle. Remember 2 situations:

1) A memory of you or others trying to cross a fence, border, or river

and

2) a particularly beautiful moment of spending time at a river (preferably Saalach or Salzach)

For each of the memories find one word that captures the memory.

Go to one of the tables in the room  and write your two words on a piece of paper and attach it to the bottle. 

 (NOTE:  tables should be in various places so that the lines in next section start in different places too)

Step 4 - Lines (Note 1:  this direction may be on portable slips of paper that audience members can take with them and follow the parts as you need.  Note 2: On the ground inside are curved intersecting lines - could be of tape or chalk or washable paint etc)

Audience instructions:

Exchange

 Take this slip of paper and your bottle.   Find a line on the ground and follow it with your feet.  If you come across another person on the same tape path, make a pattern with your feet together and your bottles.  Then exchange names, bottles, and river stories.   And continue on your journey. Repeat if you come across other people until you get to the end of the line.  

Step 5: - Bridges (note: this direction would be at the end of first line they followed and once again on a slip of paper they can take with them)

Audience instructions:

Bridges

Take this slip of paper and your current bottle.  Walk between or over the lines on the floor (never on them)  If you come across another person, you may create a bridge by connecting your bodies (may be hands, shoulders, backs, feet, elbows) so that someone else may go under it, or if you come across someone else’s bridge you may find a way under it.  Continue until you have made or gone under at least 4 bridges or until you wish to stop walking between and over the lines.  

Step 6:  (perhaps this part is in the final theatrical happening? )

Audience instructions:

Sharing

go to one of the two standing mikes in the room, and read the words on your current bottle into the microphone.  You may also share any part of the story you remember that is associated with those words.  

Questions:  

 1.  how much of this would you imagine folks really doing?  I imagine it with feet since that is one of the words, but hand washing is definitely easier if we want to do that instead?  Also, if people prefer not to touch, do you think I worded it in such a way that would give them an out?

2.   what do you think folks will get out of this experience?

3.  how can we bring in the theme of back to the beautiful even more to it?  how can this encourage hidden stories/histories to emerge? 

4.  Do we need to simplify even more?  if so, what do you think the most essential elements are?

5.  Any other thoughts, ideas?

Babli's Borders Resurfacing Creative Response #5b

Here is another short video which we shot very fast while driving by a place called Dudhia in Darjeeling district (Also West Bengal :) )
It is a small river that later joins the Mahananda River. The Mahananda River is the order between Nepal ind India in West Bengal, but the Mahananda also flows into Bangladesh.

 password: dudhia

camera: varsha

Babli's Border's Resurfacing Creative response #6

And here is my video accompanying Cynthia's poem's Saalach part.

the sound is not recorded too great, but I had t rush and compete with noise from a construction site. Sound can be rerecorded easily even outside the dance studio!

password: mixed

Babli Border 's Resurfacing Creative Response #5

While in India, we took some more footage of rivers (sadly could not carry water for several reasons, but maybe next time).

Here we are crossing the Damodar River, from Bankura disctrict to Barddhaman district both in west Bengal. My ancestral village is in Bankura, a poor, agricultural district in Bengal. My grandfath (as far as I know) migrated from the village Onda in Bankura district to the city Asansol in Barddhaman district, which has been a center for coal mining and steel production, as well as a railway junction since colonial times. The history of being a center of collieries and steel factories still dominate the character of Asansol and surroundings, where my family still lives.

The Damodar used to be called "river of sorrow" because of many destructive floods. The river is heavily polluted. See this newspaper articles (http://www.hindustantimes.com/ranchi/garbage-industrial-waste-turns-damodar-to-stagnant-mass-of-slush/story-mWHs3ZgDvhPf8ahuhtLktO.html

http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/in-flood-hit-bengal-elderly-woman-rescued-after-keeping-self-afloat-entire-night/story-QD9ewHaNzaB2krmaNL31PN.html).

A few years ago, Cynthia, my family and I went on a boat ride at Maithon dam- which is the Damodar.

password: damodar
Camera: varsha

Cyn's Creative Response #6

Here's the movement I came up with for my half of the "Mixing Waters: Saalach and San Lorenzo" poem.  It's fairly heavily based on the movement remix that Shy and I co-choreographed during our one day LA residency.  I left some silence in places so there would be room for the other half of the poem.  Also, for the last movement, I originally meant to do the action where my arms disappear in my T-shirt, but I wore the wrong T-shirt and it was really awkward, so I did the erasing movement instead.

Mixing Waters - San Lorenzo from Cynthia Ling Lee on Vimeo.

password: mixed

Also, for reference, here's the full poem.

FEEDBACK: I'm pretty much open to any thoughts y'all might have, particularly how this might fit in the context of the larger "Back to Beautiful" project.

Borders Resurfacing Assignment #6

This round, we brainstormed assignments specific to each person, while keeping in mind the upcoming performance installation in Salzburg this fall.

Shyamala: Come up with a score that combines your water ritual with Sandra's water ritual.

Meena: Keep developing video from Salaach footage, taking feedback into consideration.

Cyn and Babli: Choreograph movement for Cyn's "Mixing Waters" poem on the Saalach and San Lorenzo Rivers, drawing on vocabulary from the original gestures and remixed physical phrases we created. Sandra choreographs movement for the Saalach portion, and Cyn creates movement for the San Lorenzo version.

DUE: Sept 25

Shy's creative response #5.2 Borders Resurfacing: Words not Teeth

This is a re-write of a poem I wrote for the Familial Migration documents assignment.  I would love feedback and am also interested in moving it into my body soon!

Words NOT Teeth

I delicately examine my birth certificate, a frail ink-stained, yellowish paper.

My Father’s name squeezes itself neatly into the tiny box, whose creator didn’t anticipate the Jagarlapudis with our plentiful syllables.

His birthplace:  India.

I imagine the huge watery border he crossed and wonder how he was received when he arrived with only $26, a student visa, and his dreams.

The box for “color or race” is not filled out.  

I smirk as I observe that it contains a single horizontal line as if to mark the very category itself irrelevant.

43 years later, my year-and-a-half old son, soon to get his passport, perches curiously on a stool, pointing at the camera flash.

We love the smiley picture, but the elderly black man who runs the dingy store warns us that the rules have changed:  no smiling.

We choose the one where he looks puzzled instead.   

He is wearing his favorite color, orange, unaware of how this color is infamously linked to the 45th president of the United States.  Unaware of the president’s travel bans.  Unaware that the world’s borders are tightening and that he may never experience the freedom that I have enjoyed with my American passport and my Overseas Indian Citizenship.

This ¾ desi child who knows more Spanish than Telugu, who loves Salsa as well as Bollywood music, and who, like any almost two-year-old, simultaneously tests boundaries and clings to security.  

He knows you don’t need a big wall to feel safe.  But, like many other almost two-year-olds, he still needs practice with using words instead of teeth.  

1.  I tried a little reference to water and borders in the 6th line, not sure if it's enough?

2.  I tried to make the ending a bit more complex while still being a political statement.  What do you think of this ending?  In case you want to compare to the original:  https://postnatyam.blogspot.com/2017/03/shys-borders-resurfacing-response-3.html

3.  Any other thoughts?

Shy's creative Response #5.1 Borders Resurfacing: LASSI

I tried the water ritual that I created for the last assignment during an artists' panel at LASSI (Los Angeles Summer Solidarity Institute) last month.  I ran out of time for feedback, but Shruti had some interesting thoughts and I'll invite folks who participated to make comments if they wish as well.  Special thanks to Shruti for inviting me to participate and trusting me with trying something new, and to Yo Yo and Jools for feedback and information how to support Native communities and water protectors. 

CONTEXT: 

 I gave an overview of The Post Natyam Collective's long distance process and shared our Cyber Manifesto:   https://vimeo.com/67838947

 

I shared our current project Borders Resurfacing and the March 2016 assignment from Cynthia that inspired my "10 little" exploration:  http://postnatyam.blogspot.com/2016/03/

I performed live an expanded version of "10 little" which became titled "Not knowing of the taking" after learning of intense challenges of the water protectors at the DAPL in Oct 2016: 
https://vimeo.com/192784112 

So as not to be the representative of the Water Protectors I also shared this video of La Donna, owner of the land that housed the Sacred Stone camp where 1000s of water protectors had gathered:  (we watched from 1:45min to the end)

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=la+donna+sacred+stone+camp&&view=detail&mid=694BB5C5257F8BA96BCB694BB5C5257F8BA96BCB&FORM=VRDGAR

WATER RITUAL

Inspired Ilaan Egeland Manzzini family dance jam (tape lines and building bridges), and Barbara Dilley’s 5 eye practices (as learned from Carol McDowell)

Free Write:  

Participants did a 3 min free write about their own experiences/associations with water and borders. Then circled 3 interesting words or phrases.  To include in a  group poem

Group Poem

Eyes Closed Water Body Meditation

Ask participants spread out standing with eyes closed or soft focus.  Notice breath like waves, notice wetness in mouth, imagine blood and fluids in body circulating.  Remembering and honoring: Our bodies are about 60 percent water!  Connecting that water to water outside your body.  

Soft Focus Earth Water Walk

Invite participants to open eyes to soft focus if closed, taking room in without focusing on any particular thing.  Direct participants to begin to slowly walk around room between other bodies keeping soft focus. about 71 percent of the Earth’s surface is covered by water.  Honoring this thought as walk. Whenever want can pause and be still, noticing the movement around you, and then continue.

Seeing without naming connecting

Without naming them in your mind, begin to see the things both still and moving around you. Notice the shapes on the floor and if you are inspired, perhaps follow one (before start, I will have put down tape in long curved lines that sometimes criss cross). If you come across another who is moving pause for a minute and if you would like, I invite you connect briefly with a body part (head, arm, knee, back)

Seeing between bridges and tunnels

Noticing the spaces between the lines, begin to find ways to navigate over them without touching them.  If you come across another person think about how you can build a bridge, or a tunnel for others by connecting body parts. If you come across bridges or tunnels go through them.  Feel free to move on if you have made bridge and look for other connections or keep looking for spaces to go under, between, through.   

Seeing direct, borders and shapes

freeze and notice which lines you are between.  You may find yourself with a specific group of people within the same lines.  Stay with this group and do not cross into another area.  If there are others in the same space you can look them in the eye, make a group shape, adding in one at a time.  Once the shape is built any one may shift positions in the shape making the shape shift slowly as different people step out and build a new shape, you must stay within the lines around your group.  

Water shapes:  

Introduce a bottle of water to each group.  These waters have come all the way across several borders from rivers in Germany and Austria, one of which was the site of huge arrival of Syrian refugees.    If you get a bottle of water, carry it preciously without your hands, this is your permission to go to another group, take the water with you and present it/offer it to someone else and then take their place in the group shape.  

Stay with new group and make a new shape including the bottle of water in your group.  While everyone was in their last group shape, I read the group poem out loud. 

Resources for those interested in supporting the work of the water protectors:  
 RED (Red Earth Defense)
www.lakotalaw.org
 The Environmental Indigenous Network
 https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/news/who%27s-banking-dakota-access-pipeline

SHY'S THOUGHTS
It took much longer than I anticipated, and I could have taken even longer.  But even so, I was impressed at the shapes and connections everyone made for a group of people in which only a couple considered themselves movers.  I think they were surprised that it was fun (they had expressed trepidation about what I was going to have them do with all the lines on the floor), and they seemed amazed that the water really was from the Austrio-German border!!!

Interesting thought:  Shruti thought I could be a character when giving directions, perhaps something like a border guard, since I dictated when people could go and which areas they had to stay in.  I think they said it was interesting to feel how the borders were restrictive, even as they went about their activities or tasks and how they were conscious about not being able to cross the borders. 

Overall, I think this works well as a workshop.  I"m not so sure about getting random audience members to connect and build bridges etc.  Though the seeing eye practices while moving in, on, and over the borders can work. Perhaps a combination of these and some of Babli's water ritual ideas would be interesting to do with an actual audience?

FEEDBACK

If you were a participant, please leave any thoughts in the comment section below.  If it helps, here are a few guiding questions you can answer.

1.  What was it like for you participating in the ritual?
2.  What part was the most interesting to you and why?
3.  Was there anything you wondered about?  If so, what?
4.  If you are comfortable sharing your water freewrite let me know.  I took pictures of several of them but won't post unless you are comfortable!  you can write me separately to let me know shydance@gmail.com

Cynthia's Creative Response #5: Borders Resurfacing

For my assignment, I decided to expand my water ritual score from Assignment #4 into a participatory art project, Mixing Waters.  The project involves mailing bottles of water from the San Lorenzo River to people in other places, who would then do the mixing waters score.  You can read about the project here: http://www.cynthialinglee.com/mixing-waters/.  A good number of friends from different places in the US have agreed to do the score.

Partway through mailing out the bottles of water, Hurricane Harvey hit Houston.  Harvey has been called the worst storm to ever hit the United States.  Houston is my hometown, where I still have family; it is the fourth largest and most diverse city in the US (yes, even more than LA).  It is also a center of petrochemical production and has a laissez faire approach to zoning, all of which will complicate the recovery efforts from the extreme flooding that has occurred.  

I decided to take my remaining bottles of San Lorenzo water and do a durational ritual action connecting the 1955 flooding of Santa Cruz's last Chinatown to the current and ongoing devastation in Texas and Louisiana.  The ritual draws on baibai, Han Taiwanese practices of ancestral worship, as well as being somewhat inspired by my existing performance art piece, Lost Chinatowns.  I decided to do a ritual for every day that it kept raining (and as of Sept 1, it's still raining).  Harvey made landfall on August 25, and I didn't start till the 28th, so the first three days are missing.  

Password for all videos: "harvey"

Note: the documentation is imperfect (and given its ritual nature, it didn't make sense to re-film anything), and for some reason the Aug 31 video is flipped 90 degrees.  I'll fix that when I have some spare time.

Day 4: August 28, 2017

Mixing Waters San Lorenzo-Harvey 1 from Cynthia Ling Lee on Vimeo.

Day 5: August 29, 2017

Mixing Waters San Lorenzo-Harvey 2 from Cynthia Ling Lee on Vimeo.

Day 6: August 30, 2017

Mixing Waters San Lorenzo - Harvey 3 from Cynthia Ling Lee on Vimeo.

Day 7: August 31, 2017

Mixing Waters San Lorenzo - Harvey 4 from Cynthia Ling Lee on Vimeo.

Day 8: September 1, 2017

Mixing Waters San Lorenzo - Harvey 5 from Cynthia Ling Lee on Vimeo.

QUESTIONS:
(1) How does the ritual make you feel?  What effect does its durational, repeating nature have on you?  How do the variations from day to day register for you?
(2) Does this piece convey anything related to solidarity or coalition building to you?  Might any of its techniques be useful to us in the larger Borders Resurfacing project, as we think about how to connect our local issues/contexts?
(3) As imperfect as the documentation is, do you feel that it is strong enough as a stand-alone project to share publicly?
(4) Any other feedback or questions?

Borders ReSurfacing: Meena's Assignment 5

This last month I've been playing around with some of the footage Cynthia and Sandra shot at the Salaach River. These are just two little experiments I made by layering two videos on top of each other, and playing with contrast, brightness, saturation, and a negative effect. I was inspired by what Sandra and Cynthia were saying regarding the concept they had come up with called "Back to Beautiful." The original footage is so beautiful and aesthetically pleasing, and yet I didn't feel like it should ONLY be that. So in post-production, I've been mainly playing with ways to interrupt or manipulate the original beauty of the videos.  I would eventually like this to be layered and/or juxtaposed with some documentary photography/journalistic images of this same river with refugees. Maybe even words scrolling over videos as well. I started looking for news footage online specific to the Salaach but only found a few things (and Sandra posted some local news articles during our research right?). I haven't had chance to play with that yet. Of course I've had some technical difficulties. It all just takes time and lots of hard drive space...but I'm having fun and would like to keep playing with this stuff.

https://vimeo.com/232076213


https://vimeo.com/232096063

Borders Resurfacing: River Freewrite

August 9, 2017, 1:50 pm, San Lorenzo Park.

the sun beats down without breeze, legs too warm in sweatpants, tiny yellow amaranth seeds clinging to my shins, evidence of where I’ve been.  the rapid sound of Spanish: I look up and see two men rolling by on their bicycles, chatting as they ride.  I wanted to walk along the river today, not on the raised concrete paths and pedestrian bridges like freeways that shuttle more privileged bodies above working class POC communities, but close enough to touch the water. 

I hate myself a little now, how my skin pulls and shrinks away as I sit on the dried up grass next to a homeless encampment in this city park.  how easily I empathize with the Chinese who once lived here, who were once seen as trash, unwanted, dirty, littering the riverbanks, and how hard it is for me to exhale and relax on this riverbank where people make their home.  I unpeel my burrito, and the salt overwhelms my mouth, lips and face purse tightly, unable to taste anything but discomfort.

the signs warned me not to leave the paved path, but I ventured among the late summer plants, green and dried out and taller than me.  deep purple brushes rising with strong straight spines, small pale bursts of lavender and white, a glory of dandelions.  the insects were huge: giant fireflies buzz-sailing through the brush, a miracle of a yellow butterfly so close to my head.  ducks with brown tufted heads and drab bodies, dipping and feeding, tail-feathers in the air.  I was alarmed at how low the water was after just one week: rocks exposed in the riverbed, resembling the Salaach more now.  the strange phenomenon of the current flowing both ways, a two lane watery highway around a rocky divider.  traces of people, but uglier than the stray crushed can and burnt rocks of refugee fires at the Salaach.  a stray black shoe with a sensible heel.  newspapers.  cardboard arranged carefully as a bed.  shampoo and juice bottles and cans of chicken soup.  faded sweat shorts, wadded up and dusty with river sand.  a pair of sturdy black sneakers, placed carefully in the shade of a shrub.  and a book with a red cover: North Toward Home.

whom do we think of as disposable, as dirt?  migrant bodies, homeless bodies, refugee bodies?  as I tread through the plant-life, causing small quivers tremors disturbances beneath my feet, picking my way between mud and slime and scrappy wildflowers, what keeps me from seeing this river -- and its people -- as beautiful?