1
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(Singing) I see the moon. The moon sees me.

2
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The moon sees somebody that I don't see.

3
00:00:26,858 --> 00:00:33,393
God bless the moon, and god bless me,

4
00:00:33,393 --> 00:00:40,368
and God bless that somebody that I don't see.

5
00:00:40,368 --> 00:00:46,050
If I get to heaven, before you do,

6
00:00:46,050 --> 00:00:52,891
I'll make a hole and pull you through.

7
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And I'll write your name, on every star,

8
00:00:57,782 --> 00:01:02,005
and that way the world,

9
00:01:02,005 --> 00:01:05,887
won't seem so far.

10
00:01:05,887 --> 00:01:09,602
The astronaut will not be at work today.

11
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He has called in sick.

12
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He has turned off his cell phone, his laptop, his pager, his alarm clock.

13
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There is a fat yellow cat asleep on his couch,

14
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rain drops against the window,

15
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and not even the hint of coffee in the kitchen air.

16
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Everybody is in a tizzy.

17
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The engineers on the 15th floor have stopped working on their particle machine.

18
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The anti gravity room is leaking

19
00:01:32,711 --> 00:01:34,319
and even the freckled kid with glasses,

20
00:01:34,319 --> 00:01:36,835
whose only job is to take out the trash, is nervous,

21
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fumbles the bag, spils a banana peel and a paper cup.

22
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Nobody notices.

23
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They are too busy recalculating what this all mean for lost time.

24
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How many galaxies are we losing per second.

25
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How long before next rocket can be launched, somewhere.

26
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An electron flies off its energy cloud.

27
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A black hole has erupted.

28
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A mother finishes setting the table for dinner.

29
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A Law & Order marathon is starting.

30
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The astronaut is asleep.

31
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He has forgotten to turn off his watch,

32
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which ticks, like a metal pulse against his wrist.

33
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He does not hear it.

34
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He dreams of coral reefs and plankton.

35
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His fingers find the pillowcase's sailing masts.

36
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He turns on his side. Opens his eyes at once.

37
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He thinks that scuba divers must have 
the most wonderful job in the world.

38
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So much water to glide through!

39
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(Applause)

40
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Thank you.

41
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When I was little, I could not understand the concept

42
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that you could only live one life.

43
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I don't mean this metaphorically.

44
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I mean, I literally thought that I was going to get to do

45
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everything that there was to do

46
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and be everything there was to be.

47
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It was only a matter of time.

48
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Ad there was no limitation based on age, or gender,

49
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or race or even appropriate time period.

50
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I was sure that I was going to actually experience

51
00:03:01,009 --> 00:03:05,523
what it felt like to be a leader of the civil right movement,

52
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or a ten-year old boy living on a farm during the dust bowl,

53
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or an emperor of the Tang dynasty in China.

54
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My mom says that when people asked me what

55
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I wanted to be when I grew up, my typical response was princess-ballerina-astronaut.

56
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And what she doesn't understand is that I wasn't trying to invent some combined super profession.

57
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I was listing things I thought I was gonna get to be:

58
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a princess, and a ballerina, and an astronaut.

59
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and I'm pretty sure the list probably went on from there.

60
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I usually just got cut off.

61
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It was never a question of if I was going to do something, so much of a question of when.

62
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And I was sure that if I was going to do everything,

63
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that it probably meant I had to move pretty quickly,

64
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because there was a lot of stuff I needed to do.

65
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So my life was constantly in a state of rushing.

66
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I was always scared that I was falling behind.

67
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And since I grew up in New York City, as far as I could tell,

68
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rushing was pretty normal.

69
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But, as I grew up, I had this sinking realization,

70
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that I wasn't gonna get to live any more than one life

71
00:04:08,021 --> 00:04:11,016
I only knew what it felt like to be a teenage girl

72
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in New York City,

73
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not a teenage boy in New Zealand,

74
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not a prom queen in Kansas.

75
00:04:17,821 --> 00:04:21,013
I only got to see through my lens and it was around this time

76
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that I became obsessed with stories,

77
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because it was through stories that I was able to see

78
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through someone else's lens, however briefly or imperfectly.

79
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And I started craving hearing other people's experiences

80
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because I was so jealous that there were entire lives

81
00:04:37,052 --> 00:04:39,006
that I was never gonna get to live, and I wanted to hear

82
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about everything that I was missing.

83
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And by transitive property, I realized

84
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that some people were never going to get to experience what it felt like

85
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to be a teenage girl in New York city.

86
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Which meant that they weren’t going to know

87
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what the subway ride after your first kiss feels like,

88
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or how quiet it gets when its snows,

89
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and I wanted them to know, I wanted to tell them

90
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and this became the focus of my obsession.

91
00:05:01,669 --> 00:05:05,464
I busied myself telling stories and sharing stories and collecting them.

92
00:05:05,464 --> 00:05:08,487
And it's not until recently 
that I realized

93
00:05:08,487 --> 00:05:11,952
that I can't always rush poetry.

94
00:05:11,952 --> 00:05:16,108
In April for National Poetry Month there's this challenge that,

95
00:05:16,108 --> 00:05:18,669
many poets in the poetry community participate in,

96
00:05:18,669 --> 00:05:21,057
and its called the 30/30 Challenge.

97
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The idea is you write a new poem every single day for the entire month of April.

98
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And last year I tried it for the first time, and I was thrilled

99
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by the efficiency at which I was able to produce poetry.

100
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But at the end of the month I looked back at these 30 poems I had written,

101
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and discovered that they were all trying to tell the same story,

102
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it had just taken me 30 tries to figure out the way that it wanted to be told.

103
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And I realized that this is probably true of other stories on an even larger scale.

104
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I have stories that I have tried to tell for years,

105
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rewriting and rewriting and constantly searching for the right words.

106
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There's a French poet, an essayist by the name of Paul Valery

107
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who said a poem is never finished, it is only abandoned.

108
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And this terrifies me because it implies that

109
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I could keep reediting and rewriting forever and its up to me to decide

110
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when a poem is finished and when I can walk away from it.

111
00:06:15,763 --> 00:06:18,039
And this goes directly against my very obsessive nature to try

112
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to find the right answer, and the perfect words, and the right form.

113
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And I use poetry in my life, as a way to help me navigate an work through things.

114
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But just because I end the poem, doesn't mean that I've solved

115
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whatever I was puzzling through.

116
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I like to revisit old poetry,

117
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because it shows me exactly where I was at that moment.

118
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And what it was I was trying to navigate and the words

119
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that I chose to help me.

120
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Now, I have a story that I've been stumbling over for years and years

121
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and I'm not sure if I've found the prefect form,

122
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or whether this is just one attempt

123
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and I will try to rewrite it later

124
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in search of a better way to tell it.

125
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But I do know that later, when I look back

126
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I will be able to know that this is where I was

127
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at this moment, and this is what I was trying to navigate,

128
00:07:05,009 --> 00:07:09,686
with these words, here, in this room, with you.

129
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So -- Smile.

130
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It didn't always work this way.

131
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There is a time you have to get your hands dirty.

132
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When you were in the dark, for most of it, fumbling was a given,

133
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and you needed more contrast, more saturation,

134
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darker darks, and brighter brights.

135
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They called it extended development. It meant you spent

136
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longer inhaling chemicals, longer up to your wrist.

137
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It wasn't always easy.

138
00:07:42,363 --> 00:07:45,041
Grandpa Stewart was a navy photographer.

139
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Young, red-faced with the sleeves rolled up,

140
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fists of fingers like fat rolls of coins,

141
00:07:51,412 --> 00:07:54,513
he looked like Popeye the sailor man, come to life.

142
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Crooked smile, tuft of chest hair,

143
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he showed up at World War II, with a smirk and a hobby.

144
00:07:59,771 --> 00:08:02,420
When they asked him if he knew much about photography,

145
00:08:02,420 --> 00:08:06,280
he lied, learned to read Europe like a map,

146
00:08:06,280 --> 00:08:09,018
upside down, from the height of a fighter plane,

147
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camera snapping, eyelids flapping, the darkest darks

148
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and brightest brights.

149
00:08:14,009 --> 00:08:17,019
He learned war like he could read his way home.

150
00:08:17,019 --> 00:08:19,046
When other men returned, they would put their weapons out to rest,

151
00:08:19,046 --> 00:08:22,867
but he, brought the lenses and the cameras home with him.

152
00:08:22,867 --> 00:08:25,650
Opened a shop, turned it into a family affair.

153
00:08:25,650 --> 00:08:29,043
My father was born into this world of black and white.

154
00:08:29,043 --> 00:08:32,604
His basketball hands learned the tiny clicks and slides

155
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of lens into frame, film into camera,

156
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chemical into plastic bin.

157
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His father knew the equipment but not the art.

158
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He knew the darks but not the brights.

159
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My father learned the magic, spent his time following light.

160
00:08:46,024 --> 00:08:48,990
Once he traveled across the country to follow a forest fire,

161
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hunted it with his camera for a week.

162
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"Follow the light," he said.

163
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"Follow the light."

164
00:08:55,830 --> 00:08:58,293
There are parts of me I only recognize from photographs.

165
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The loft on Wooster street with the creaky hallways,

166
00:09:01,512 --> 00:09:04,517
the twelve-foot ceilings, the white walls and cold floors.

167
00:09:04,517 --> 00:09:07,293
This was my mothers home, before she was mother.

168
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Before she was wife, she was artist.

169
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And the only two rooms in the house,

170
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with walls that reached all the way up to the ceiling,

171
00:09:14,109 --> 00:09:15,736
and doors that opened and closed,

172
00:09:15,736 --> 00:09:18,711
were the bathroom and the dark room.

173
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The dark room she built herself, with custom made

174
00:09:21,036 --> 00:09:25,010
stainless steel sinks, an 8 by 10 bed enlarger

175
00:09:25,010 --> 00:09:27,045
that moved up and down by a giant hand crank,

176
00:09:27,045 --> 00:09:29,056
a bank of color balanced lights,

177
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a white glass wall for viewing prints,

178
00:09:31,408 --> 00:09:33,863
a drying rack that moved in and out from the wall.

179
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My mother built herself a dark room.

180
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Made it her home.

181
00:09:37,076 --> 00:09:39,985
Fell in love with a man with basketball hands,

182
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with the way he looked at light.

183
00:09:42,265 --> 00:09:44,364
They got married. Had a baby.

184
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Moved to a house near a park.

185
00:09:46,013 --> 00:09:49,008
But they kept the loft at Wooster street

186
00:09:49,008 --> 00:09:50,867
for birthday parties and treasure hunts.

187
00:09:50,867 --> 00:09:53,611
The baby tipped the gray scale.

188
00:09:53,611 --> 00:09:56,083
Filled her parents' photo albums with red balloons

189
00:09:56,083 --> 00:09:57,073
and yellow icing.

190
00:09:57,073 --> 00:09:59,535
The baby grew into a girl without freckles,

191
00:09:59,535 --> 00:10:01,002
with a crooked smile,

192
00:10:01,002 --> 00:10:05,711
who didn’t understand why her friends did not have dark rooms in their houses,

193
00:10:05,711 --> 00:10:07,490
who never saw her parents kiss,

194
00:10:07,490 --> 00:10:09,449
who never saw them hold hands.

195
00:10:09,449 --> 00:10:11,035
But one day, another baby showed up.

196
00:10:11,035 --> 00:10:14,856
This one with perfect straight hair and bubble gum cheeks.

197
00:10:14,856 --> 00:10:16,570
They named him sweet potato.

198
00:10:16,570 --> 00:10:18,023
When he laughed, he laughed so loudly,

199
00:10:18,023 --> 00:10:20,061
he scared the pigeons on the fire escape

200
00:10:20,061 --> 00:10:23,262
And the four of them lived in that house near the park.

201
00:10:23,262 --> 00:10:25,903
The girl with no freckles, and the sweet potato boy,

202
00:10:25,903 --> 00:10:28,030
the basketball father, and the dark room mother

203
00:10:28,030 --> 00:10:30,872
and they lit their candles, and they said their prayers,

204
00:10:30,872 --> 00:10:33,698
and the corners of the photographs curled.

205
00:10:33,698 --> 00:10:35,750
One day some towers fell

206
00:10:35,750 --> 00:10:39,853
and the house near the park became a house under ash, so they escaped.

207
00:10:39,853 --> 00:10:45,008
In backpacks, on bicycles to darkrooms but the loft of Wooster street

208
00:10:45,008 --> 00:10:48,812
was built for an artist, not a family of pigeons

209
00:10:48,812 --> 00:10:50,775
and walls that do not reach the ceiling

210
00:10:50,775 --> 00:10:52,090
do not hold in the yelling

211
00:10:52,090 --> 00:10:56,745
and a man with basketball hands put his weapons out to rest.

212
00:10:56,745 --> 00:11:00,008
He could not fight this war and no maps pointed home.

213
00:11:00,008 --> 00:11:01,678
His hands no longer fit his camera,

214
00:11:01,678 --> 00:11:03,360
no longer fit his wife's,

215
00:11:03,360 --> 00:11:05,858
no longer fit his body.

216
00:11:05,858 --> 00:11:08,713
The sweet potato boy mashed his fists into his mouth

217
00:11:08,713 --> 00:11:10,229
until he had nothing more to say.

218
00:11:10,229 --> 00:11:14,022
So, the girl without freckles went treasure hunting on her own.

219
00:11:14,022 --> 00:11:17,638
And on Wooster street, in a building with a creaky hallways,

220
00:11:17,638 --> 00:11:19,490
and a loft of the 12-foot ceiling

221
00:11:19,490 --> 00:11:21,482
and a darkroom with too many sinks

222
00:11:21,482 --> 00:11:24,028
under the color balance light, she found a note,

223
00:11:24,028 --> 00:11:28,941
tacked to the wall thumb-tacked, left over from the times before towers,

224
00:11:28,941 --> 00:11:31,485
from the time before babies.

225
00:11:31,485 --> 00:11:37,007
And the note said: "A guy sure loves the girl who works in the darkroom."

226
00:11:37,007 --> 00:11:40,944
It was a year before my father picked up a camera again.

227
00:11:40,944 --> 00:11:43,578
His first time out, he followed the Christmas lights,

228
00:11:43,578 --> 00:11:46,013
dotting their way through New York City's trees.

229
00:11:46,013 --> 00:11:50,967
Tiny dots of light, blinking out of him from out of the darkest darks.

230
00:11:50,967 --> 00:11:54,873
A year later he traveled across the country to follow a forest fire,

231
00:11:54,873 --> 00:11:57,527
stayed for a week hunting it with his camera,

232
00:11:57,527 --> 00:11:59,497
it was ravaging the West Coast

233
00:11:59,497 --> 00:12:01,481
eating 18-wheeler trucks in its stride.

234
00:12:01,481 --> 00:12:03,062
On the other side of the country,

235
00:12:03,062 --> 00:12:06,050
I went to class and wrote a poem on the margins of my notebook.

236
00:12:06,050 --> 00:12:08,765
We have both learned the art of capture.

237
00:12:08,765 --> 00:12:11,398
Maybe we are learning the art of embracing.

238
00:12:11,448 --> 00:12:15,755
Maybe we are learning the art of letting go.

239
00:12:16,005 --> 02:06:07,010
Thank You. (Applause)