0:00:00.609,0:00:05.297
(Singing) I see the moon.[br]The moon sees me.

0:00:06.296,0:00:11.564
The moon sees somebody that I don't see.

0:00:12.708,0:00:18.351
God bless the moon, and God bless me.

0:00:19.243,0:00:24.655
And God bless the somebody[br]that I don't see.

0:00:25.673,0:00:31.331
If I get to heaven, before you do,

0:00:31.987,0:00:37.770
I'll make a hole and pull you through.

0:00:38.083,0:00:43.552
And I'll write your name on every star,

0:00:44.062,0:00:46.704
and that way the world

0:00:47.356,0:00:50.638
won't seem so far.

0:00:51.079,0:00:54.770
The astronaut will not be at work today.

0:00:55.111,0:00:56.767
He has called in sick.

0:00:56.791,0:01:01.919
He has turned off his cell phone,[br]his laptop, his pager, his alarm clock.

0:01:01.943,0:01:05.092
There is a fat yellow cat[br]asleep on his couch,

0:01:05.116,0:01:06.860
raindrops against the window

0:01:06.884,0:01:10.599
and not even the hint[br]of coffee in the kitchen air.

0:01:10.623,0:01:11.872
Everybody is in a tizzy.

0:01:11.896,0:01:15.842
The engineers on the 15th floor have[br]stopped working on their particle machine.

0:01:15.866,0:01:17.644
The anti-gravity room is leaking,

0:01:17.668,0:01:19.548
and even the freckled kid with glasses,

0:01:19.572,0:01:22.246
whose only job is to take[br]out the trash, is nervous,

0:01:22.270,0:01:24.979
fumbles the bag, spills[br]a banana peel and a paper cup.

0:01:25.003,0:01:26.425
Nobody notices.

0:01:26.449,0:01:29.874
They are too busy recalculating[br]what this all mean for lost time.

0:01:29.898,0:01:31.930
How many galaxies[br]are we losing per second?

0:01:31.954,0:01:34.004
How long before next rocket[br]can be launched?

0:01:34.028,0:01:36.899
Somewhere an electron[br]flies off its energy cloud.

0:01:36.923,0:01:38.889
A black hole has erupted.

0:01:38.913,0:01:41.214
A mother finishes setting[br]the table for dinner.

0:01:41.238,0:01:43.299
A Law & Order marathon is starting.

0:01:43.323,0:01:45.544
The astronaut is asleep.

0:01:45.568,0:01:47.471
He has forgotten to turn off his watch,

0:01:47.495,0:01:50.246
which ticks, like a metal[br]pulse against his wrist.

0:01:50.270,0:01:51.845
He does not hear it.

0:01:51.869,0:01:54.918
He dreams of coral reefs and plankton.

0:01:54.942,0:01:58.081
His fingers find[br]the pillowcase's sailing masts.

0:01:58.105,0:02:01.173
He turns on his side,[br]opens his eyes at once.

0:02:01.197,0:02:05.927
He thinks that scuba divers must have[br]the most wonderful job in the world.

0:02:05.951,0:02:08.794
So much water to glide through!

0:02:11.070,0:02:16.298
(Applause)

0:02:16.322,0:02:18.103
Thank you.

0:02:18.127,0:02:22.228
When I was little, I could[br]not understand the concept

0:02:22.996,0:02:25.041
that you could only live one life.

0:02:25.560,0:02:27.140
I don't mean this metaphorically.

0:02:27.164,0:02:30.115
I mean, I literally thought[br]that I was going to get to do

0:02:30.433,0:02:32.479
everything there was to do

0:02:32.503,0:02:35.099
and be everything there was to be.

0:02:35.123,0:02:36.527
It was only a matter of time.

0:02:36.899,0:02:39.923
And there was no limitation[br]based on age or gender

0:02:39.947,0:02:43.034
or race or even appropriate time period.

0:02:43.058,0:02:46.509
I was sure that I was going[br]to actually experience

0:02:46.533,0:02:50.327
what it felt like to be a leader[br]of the civil rights movement

0:02:50.351,0:02:53.985
or a ten-year old boy living[br]on a farm during the dust bowl

0:02:54.009,0:02:57.627
or an emperor of the Tang[br]dynasty in China.

0:02:57.651,0:02:59.652
My mom says that when people asked me

0:02:59.676,0:03:03.255
what I wanted to be when I grew up,[br]my typical response was:

0:03:03.279,0:03:05.047
princess-ballerina-astronaut.

0:03:05.458,0:03:08.603
And what she doesn't understand[br]is that I wasn't trying to invent

0:03:08.627,0:03:10.610
some combined super profession.

0:03:10.634,0:03:14.011
I was listing things I thought[br]I was gonna get to be:

0:03:14.035,0:03:17.096
a princess and a ballerina[br]and an astronaut.

0:03:17.120,0:03:19.859
and I'm pretty sure the list[br]probably went on from there.

0:03:19.883,0:03:21.881
I usually just got cut off.

0:03:21.905,0:03:24.771
It was never a question[br]of if I was gonna get to do something

0:03:24.795,0:03:26.855
so much of a question of when.

0:03:27.278,0:03:29.755
And I was sure that if I was going[br]to do everything,

0:03:29.779,0:03:32.215
that it probably meant I had[br]to move pretty quickly,

0:03:32.239,0:03:34.485
because there was a lot[br]of stuff I needed to do.

0:03:34.509,0:03:36.779
So my life was constantly[br]in a state of rushing.

0:03:36.803,0:03:38.970
I was always scared[br]that I was falling behind.

0:03:38.994,0:03:42.374
And since I grew up[br]in New York City, as far as I could tell,

0:03:42.398,0:03:44.224
rushing was pretty normal.

0:03:45.128,0:03:48.763
But, as I grew up, I had[br]this sinking realization,

0:03:49.108,0:03:53.398
that I wasn't gonna get to live[br]any more than one life.

0:03:53.422,0:03:56.428
I only knew what it felt like[br]to be a teenage girl

0:03:56.452,0:03:57.603
in New York City,

0:03:57.627,0:03:59.918
not a teenage boy in New Zealand,

0:03:59.942,0:04:03.019
not a prom queen in Kansas.

0:04:03.043,0:04:04.964
I only got to see through my lens.

0:04:04.988,0:04:08.296
And it was around this time[br]that I became obsessed with stories,

0:04:08.320,0:04:11.447
because it was through stories[br]that I was able to see

0:04:11.471,0:04:15.193
through someone else's lens,[br]however briefly or imperfectly.

0:04:15.589,0:04:18.701
And I started craving hearing[br]other people's experiences

0:04:18.725,0:04:22.288
because I was so jealous[br]that there were entire lives

0:04:22.312,0:04:24.003
that I was never gonna get to live,

0:04:24.027,0:04:26.702
and I wanted to hear[br]about everything that I was missing.

0:04:26.726,0:04:28.020
And by transitive property,

0:04:28.044,0:04:31.273
I realized that some people[br]were never gonna get to experience

0:04:31.297,0:04:33.981
what it felt like to be a teenage girl[br]in New York city.

0:04:34.005,0:04:35.910
Which meant that they weren't gonna know

0:04:35.934,0:04:39.156
what the subway ride[br]after your first kiss feels like,

0:04:39.180,0:04:41.998
or how quiet it gets when its snows.

0:04:42.022,0:04:44.634
And I wanted them to know,[br]I wanted to tell them.

0:04:44.658,0:04:47.085
And this became the focus of my obsession.

0:04:47.109,0:04:50.734
I busied myself telling stories[br]and sharing stories and collecting them.

0:04:50.758,0:04:52.742
And it's not until recently

0:04:52.766,0:04:57.075
that I realized that[br]I can't always rush poetry.

0:04:57.666,0:05:01.004
In April for National Poetry Month,[br]there's this challenge

0:05:01.028,0:05:04.146
that many poets in the poetry[br]community participate in,

0:05:04.170,0:05:06.234
and its called the 30/30 Challenge.

0:05:06.551,0:05:09.273
The idea is you write a new poem

0:05:09.297,0:05:12.234
every single day[br]for the entire month of April.

0:05:12.916,0:05:14.972
And last year, I tried it[br]for the first time

0:05:14.996,0:05:19.146
and was thrilled by the efficiency[br]at which I was able to produce poetry.

0:05:19.765,0:05:23.375
But at the end of the month, I looked[br]back at these 30 poems I had written

0:05:23.399,0:05:27.418
and discovered that they were[br]all trying to tell the same story,

0:05:27.442,0:05:32.251
it had just taken me 30 tries to figure[br]out the way that it wanted to be told.

0:05:32.275,0:05:36.196
And I realized that this is probably true[br]of other stories on an even larger scale.

0:05:36.220,0:05:38.648
I have stories that I have[br]tried to tell for years,

0:05:38.672,0:05:43.060
rewriting and rewriting and constantly[br]searching for the right words.

0:05:43.084,0:05:46.369
There's a French poet and essayist[br]by the name of Paul Valéry

0:05:46.393,0:05:49.869
who said a poem is never[br]finished, it is only abandoned.

0:05:50.178,0:05:51.329
And this terrifies me

0:05:51.353,0:05:54.732
because it implies that I could keep[br]re-editing and rewriting forever

0:05:54.756,0:05:58.209
and its up to me to decide[br]when a poem is finished

0:05:58.233,0:06:00.344
and when I can walk away from it.

0:06:00.978,0:06:03.685
And this goes directly against[br]my very obsessive nature

0:06:03.709,0:06:07.328
to try to find the right answer[br]and the perfect words and the right form.

0:06:07.352,0:06:09.433
And I use poetry in my life,

0:06:09.457,0:06:12.169
as a way to help me navigate[br]and work through things.

0:06:12.193,0:06:15.399
But just because I end the poem,[br]doesn't mean that I've solved

0:06:15.423,0:06:17.407
what it was I was puzzling through.

0:06:18.001,0:06:19.835
I like to revisit old poetry

0:06:19.859,0:06:23.674
because it shows me exactly[br]where I was at that moment

0:06:23.698,0:06:25.611
and what it was I was trying to navigate

0:06:25.635,0:06:27.769
and the words that I chose to help me.

0:06:28.468,0:06:29.821
Now, I have a story

0:06:29.845,0:06:32.694
that I've been stumbling[br]over for years and years

0:06:32.718,0:06:35.368
and I'm not sure if I've found[br]the perfect form,

0:06:35.392,0:06:37.384
or whether this is just one attempt

0:06:37.408,0:06:41.153
and I will try to rewrite it later[br]in search of a better way to tell it.

0:06:41.177,0:06:44.177
But I do know that later, when I look back

0:06:44.201,0:06:48.200
I will be able to know that[br]this is where I was at this moment

0:06:48.224,0:06:50.423
and this is what I was trying to navigate,

0:06:50.447,0:06:53.274
with these words, here,[br]in this room, with you.

0:06:56.105,0:06:57.255
So --

0:06:58.652,0:07:00.152
Smile.

0:07:05.310,0:07:06.794
It didn't always work this way.

0:07:07.874,0:07:10.281
There's a time you had[br]to get your hands dirty.

0:07:10.305,0:07:14.090
When you were in the dark,[br]for most of it, fumbling was a given.

0:07:14.416,0:07:17.812
If you needed more[br]contrast, more saturation,

0:07:17.836,0:07:19.939
darker darks and brighter brights,

0:07:19.963,0:07:22.660
they called it extended development.

0:07:22.684,0:07:25.986
It meant you spent longer inhaling[br]chemicals, longer up to your wrist.

0:07:26.010,0:07:27.302
It wasn't always easy.

0:07:27.937,0:07:30.707
Grandpa Stewart was a Navy photographer.

0:07:30.731,0:07:33.675
Young, red-faced[br]with his sleeves rolled up,

0:07:33.699,0:07:36.327
fists of fingers like fat rolls of coins,

0:07:36.351,0:07:39.171
he looked like Popeye[br]the sailor man come to life.

0:07:39.195,0:07:41.612
Crooked smile, tuft of chest hair,

0:07:41.636,0:07:45.017
he showed up to World War II,[br]with a smirk and a hobby.

0:07:45.041,0:07:47.707
When they asked him if he knew[br]much about photography,

0:07:47.731,0:07:51.019
he lied, learned to read[br]Europe like a map,

0:07:51.043,0:07:54.233
upside down, from the height[br]of a fighter plane,

0:07:54.257,0:07:56.758
camera snapping, eyelids flapping

0:07:56.782,0:07:58.997
the darkest darks and brightest brights.

0:07:59.021,0:08:02.007
He learned war like he could[br]read his way home.

0:08:02.520,0:08:05.624
When other men returned,[br]they would put their weapons out to rest,

0:08:05.648,0:08:08.275
but he brought the lenses[br]and the cameras home with him.

0:08:08.299,0:08:11.362
Opened a shop, turned it[br]into a family affair.

0:08:11.386,0:08:14.806
My father was born into this[br]world of black and white.

0:08:14.830,0:08:18.000
His basketball hands learned[br]the tiny clicks and slides

0:08:18.024,0:08:20.595
of lens into frame, film into camera,

0:08:20.619,0:08:22.096
chemical into plastic bin.

0:08:22.120,0:08:24.944
His father knew the equipment[br]but not the art.

0:08:25.308,0:08:27.151
He knew the darks but not the brights.

0:08:27.175,0:08:30.850
My father learned the magic,[br]spent his time following light.

0:08:30.874,0:08:34.508
Once he traveled across the country[br]to follow a forest fire,

0:08:34.532,0:08:37.087
hunted it with his camera for a week.

0:08:37.929,0:08:39.381
"Follow the light," he said.

0:08:39.698,0:08:40.874
"Follow the light."

0:08:40.898,0:08:44.071
There are parts of me[br]I only recognize from photographs.

0:08:44.095,0:08:46.801
The loft on Wooster Street[br]with the creaky hallways,

0:08:46.825,0:08:49.525
the twelve-foot ceilings,[br]white walls and cold floors.

0:08:49.549,0:08:52.348
This was my mother's home,[br]before she was mother.

0:08:52.372,0:08:55.229
Before she was wife, she was artist.

0:08:55.253,0:08:56.992
And the only two rooms in the house,

0:08:57.016,0:08:59.547
with walls that reached[br]all the way up to the ceiling,

0:08:59.571,0:09:01.158
and doors that opened and closed,

0:09:01.182,0:09:03.443
were the bathroom and the darkroom.

0:09:03.814,0:09:05.893
The darkroom she built herself,

0:09:05.917,0:09:10.512
with custom-made stainless steel sinks,[br]an 8x10 bed enlarger

0:09:10.536,0:09:12.948
that moved up and down[br]by a giant hand crank,

0:09:12.972,0:09:14.655
a bank of color-balanced lights,

0:09:14.679,0:09:16.644
a white glass wall for viewing prints,

0:09:16.668,0:09:19.010
a drying rack that moved[br]in and out from the wall.

0:09:19.034,0:09:21.120
My mother built herself a darkroom.

0:09:21.144,0:09:22.407
Made it her home.

0:09:22.431,0:09:25.091
Fell in love with a man[br]with basketball hands,

0:09:25.115,0:09:26.995
with the way he looked at light.

0:09:27.375,0:09:29.458
They got married. Had a baby.

0:09:29.482,0:09:31.672
Moved to a house near a park.

0:09:31.696,0:09:33.609
But they kept the loft on Wooster Street

0:09:33.633,0:09:36.182
for birthday parties and treasure hunts.

0:09:36.206,0:09:38.610
The baby tipped the grayscale,

0:09:38.634,0:09:42.269
filled her parents' photo albums[br]with red balloons and yellow icing.

0:09:42.293,0:09:45.062
The baby grew into a girl[br]without freckles,

0:09:45.086,0:09:46.578
with a crooked smile,

0:09:46.602,0:09:51.062
who didn’t understand why her friends[br]did not have darkrooms in their houses,

0:09:51.086,0:09:52.998
who never saw her parents kiss,

0:09:53.022,0:09:54.554
who never saw them hold hands.

0:09:55.006,0:09:56.744
But one day, another baby showed up.

0:09:56.768,0:09:59.951
This one with perfect straight[br]hair and bubble gum cheeks.

0:09:59.975,0:10:01.601
They named him sweet potato.

0:10:01.625,0:10:03.557
When he laughed, he laughed so loudly

0:10:03.581,0:10:05.739
he scared the pigeons on the fire escape

0:10:05.763,0:10:08.739
And the four of them lived[br]in that house near the park.

0:10:08.763,0:10:11.318
The girl with no freckles,[br]the sweet potato boy,

0:10:11.342,0:10:13.468
the basketball father and darkroom mother

0:10:13.492,0:10:16.120
and they lit their candles[br]and said their prayers,

0:10:16.144,0:10:18.198
and the corners of the photographs curled.

0:10:18.959,0:10:21.467
One day, some towers fell.

0:10:21.491,0:10:25.220
And the house near the park[br]became a house under ash, so they escaped

0:10:25.244,0:10:28.507
in backpacks, on bicycles to darkrooms

0:10:28.531,0:10:31.360
But the loft of Wooster Street[br]was built for an artist,

0:10:31.384,0:10:34.138
not a family of pigeons,

0:10:34.162,0:10:37.534
and walls that do not reach the ceiling[br]do not hold in the yelling

0:10:37.558,0:10:41.800
and the man with basketball hands[br]put his weapons out to rest.

0:10:41.824,0:10:45.063
He could not fight this war,[br]and no maps pointed home.

0:10:45.442,0:10:47.641
His hands no longer fit his camera,

0:10:47.665,0:10:49.252
no longer fit his wife's,

0:10:49.276,0:10:50.712
no longer fit his body.

0:10:51.299,0:10:53.983
The sweet potato boy mashed[br]his fists into his mouth

0:10:54.007,0:10:55.580
until he had nothing more to say.

0:10:55.604,0:10:58.902
So, the girl without freckles[br]went treasure hunting on her own.

0:10:59.497,0:11:02.908
And on Wooster Street, in a building[br]with the creaky hallways

0:11:02.932,0:11:04.760
and the loft with the 12-foot ceilings

0:11:04.784,0:11:06.752
and the darkroom with too many sinks

0:11:06.776,0:11:09.298
under the color-balanced lights,[br]she found a note,

0:11:09.322,0:11:13.575
tacked to the wall with a thumb-tack,[br]left over from a time before towers,

0:11:13.933,0:11:16.564
from the time before babies.

0:11:16.588,0:11:21.520
And the note said: "A guy sure loves[br]the girl who works in the darkroom."

0:11:22.758,0:11:25.710
It was a year before my father[br]picked up a camera again.

0:11:26.238,0:11:28.776
His first time out, he followed[br]the Christmas lights,

0:11:28.800,0:11:31.283
dotting their way through[br]New York City's trees,

0:11:31.307,0:11:36.006
tiny dots of light, blinking out at him[br]from out of the darkest darks.

0:11:36.030,0:11:39.928
A year later he traveled[br]across the country to follow a forest fire

0:11:39.952,0:11:42.464
stayed for a week hunting[br]it with his camera,

0:11:42.488,0:11:44.340
it was ravaging the West Coast

0:11:44.364,0:11:46.594
eating 18-wheeler trucks in its stride.

0:11:46.618,0:11:48.197
On the other side of the country,

0:11:48.221,0:11:51.579
I went to class and wrote a poem[br]in the margins of my notebook.

0:11:51.603,0:11:53.563
We have both learned the art of capture.

0:11:54.059,0:11:56.912
Maybe we are learning[br]the art of embracing.

0:11:56.936,0:12:00.039
Maybe we are learning[br]the art of letting go.

0:12:01.357,0:12:06.023
(Applause)