0:00:14.870,0:00:20.788
(Singing) I see the moon.[br]The moon sees me.

0:00:20.788,0:00:26.858
The moon sees somebody that I don't see.

0:00:26.858,0:00:33.393
God bless the moon, and god bless me,

0:00:33.393,0:00:40.368
and God bless that somebody[br]that I don't see.

0:00:40.368,0:00:46.050
If I get to heaven, before you do,

0:00:46.050,0:00:52.891
I'll make a hole and pull you through.

0:00:52.891,0:00:57.782
And I'll write your name, on every star,

0:00:57.782,0:01:02.005
and that way the world,

0:01:02.005,0:01:05.887
won't seem so far.

0:01:05.887,0:01:09.602
The astronaut will not be at work today.

0:01:09.602,0:01:11.497
He has called in sick.

0:01:11.497,0:01:16.887
He has turned off his cell phone,[br]his laptop, his pager, his alarm clock.

0:01:16.887,0:01:19.846
There is a fat yellow cat[br]asleep on his couch,

0:01:19.846,0:01:21.799
rain drops against the window,

0:01:21.799,0:01:25.014
and not even the hint[br]of coffee in the kitchen air.

0:01:25.014,0:01:26.768
Everybody is in a tizzy.

0:01:26.768,0:01:30.708
The engineers on the 15th floor have[br]stopped working on their particle machine.

0:01:30.708,0:01:32.711
The anti gravity room is leaking

0:01:32.711,0:01:34.619
and even the freckled kid with glasses,

0:01:34.619,0:01:37.135
whose only job is to take[br]out the trash, is nervous,

0:01:37.135,0:01:39.777
fumbles the bag, spills[br]a banana peel and a paper cup.

0:01:39.777,0:01:41.383
Nobody notices.

0:01:41.383,0:01:44.479
They are too busy recalculating[br]what this all mean for lost time.

0:01:44.503,0:01:46.866
How many galaxies[br]are we losing per second.

0:01:46.866,0:01:49.486
How long before next rocket[br]can be launched, somewhere.

0:01:49.510,0:01:51.743
An electron flies off its energy cloud.

0:01:51.743,0:01:53.024
A black hole has erupted.

0:01:53.024,0:01:56.216
A mother finishes setting[br]the table for dinner.

0:01:56.216,0:01:57.883
A Law & Order marathon is starting.

0:01:57.907,0:02:00.037
The astronaut is asleep.

0:02:00.037,0:02:01.959
He has forgotten to turn off his watch,

0:02:01.959,0:02:04.759
which ticks, like a metal[br]pulse against his wrist.

0:02:04.759,0:02:06.510
He does not hear it.

0:02:06.510,0:02:09.673
He dreams of coral reefs and plankton.

0:02:09.673,0:02:12.675
His fingers find[br]the pillowcase's sailing masts.

0:02:12.675,0:02:15.399
He turns on his side.[br]Opens his eyes at once.

0:02:15.399,0:02:20.668
He thinks that scuba divers must have[br]the most wonderful job in the world.

0:02:20.668,0:02:24.335
So much water to glide through!

0:02:26.381,0:02:30.687
(Applause)

0:02:30.687,0:02:32.879
Thank you.

0:02:32.879,0:02:37.004
When I was little, I could[br]not understand the concept

0:02:37.004,0:02:39.771
that you could only live one life.

0:02:39.771,0:02:41.637
I don't mean this metaphorically.

0:02:41.637,0:02:44.966
I mean, I literally thought[br]that I was going to get to do

0:02:44.966,0:02:47.512
everything that there was to do

0:02:47.512,0:02:50.027
and be everything there was to be.

0:02:50.027,0:02:51.899
It was only a matter of time.

0:02:51.899,0:02:54.709
Ad there was no limitation[br]based on age, or gender,

0:02:54.709,0:02:57.659
or race or even appropriate time period.

0:02:57.659,0:03:01.009
I was sure that I was going[br]to actually experience

0:03:01.009,0:03:05.523
what it felt like to be a leader[br]of the civil right movement,

0:03:05.523,0:03:08.441
or a ten-year old boy living[br]on a farm during the dust bowl,

0:03:08.441,0:03:12.086
or an emperor of the Tang[br]dynasty in China.

0:03:12.086,0:03:14.739
My mom says that when people asked me what

0:03:14.739,0:03:20.140
I wanted to be when I grew up, my typical[br]response was princess-ballerina-astronaut.

0:03:20.164,0:03:23.293
And what she doesn't understand[br]is that I wasn't trying to invent

0:03:23.318,0:03:25.441
some combined[br]super profession.

0:03:25.442,0:03:28.869
I was listing things I thought[br]I was gonna get to be:

0:03:28.869,0:03:31.953
a princess, and a ballerina,[br]and an astronaut.

0:03:31.953,0:03:34.668
and I'm pretty sure the list[br]probably went on from there.

0:03:34.692,0:03:36.592
I usually just got cut off.

0:03:36.592,0:03:39.359
It was never a question[br]of if I was going to do something

0:03:39.384,0:03:41.875
so much of a question of when.

0:03:41.876,0:03:44.700
And I was sure that if I was going[br]to do everything,

0:03:44.700,0:03:47.208
that it probably meant I had[br]to move pretty quickly,

0:03:47.208,0:03:49.458
because there was a lot[br]of stuff I needed to do.

0:03:49.458,0:03:51.808
So my life was constantly[br]in a state of rushing.

0:03:51.808,0:03:53.999
I was always scared[br]that I was falling behind.

0:03:54.023,0:03:56.940
And since I grew up in New York[br]City, as far as I could tell,

0:03:56.940,0:04:00.112
rushing was pretty normal.

0:04:00.112,0:04:03.926
But, as I grew up, I had[br]this sinking realization,

0:04:03.926,0:04:08.021
that I wasn't gonna get to live[br]any more than one life

0:04:08.021,0:04:11.016
I only knew what it felt[br]like to be a teenage girl

0:04:11.016,0:04:12.046
in New York City,

0:04:12.046,0:04:14.934
not a teenage boy in New Zealand,

0:04:14.934,0:04:17.821
not a prom queen in Kansas.

0:04:17.821,0:04:21.012
I only got to see through my lens[br]and it was around this time

0:04:21.012,0:04:23.089
that I became obsessed with stories,

0:04:23.089,0:04:25.613
because it was through stories[br]that I was able to see

0:04:25.637,0:04:30.021
through someone else's lens,[br]however briefly or imperfectly.

0:04:30.021,0:04:33.849
And I started craving hearing[br]other people's experiences

0:04:33.849,0:04:37.052
because I was so jealous[br]that there were entire lives

0:04:37.052,0:04:39.906
that I was never going to get[br]to live, and I wanted to hear

0:04:39.906,0:04:41.711
about everything that I was missing.

0:04:41.711,0:04:43.528
And by transitive property, I realized

0:04:43.528,0:04:46.957
that some people were never going[br]to get to experience what it felt like

0:04:46.981,0:04:49.052
to be a teenage girl in New York city.

0:04:49.052,0:04:51.100
Which meant that they weren’t[br]going to know

0:04:51.124,0:04:54.180
what the subway ride[br]after your first kiss feels like,

0:04:54.180,0:04:57.062
or how quiet it gets when its snows,

0:04:57.062,0:04:59.348
and I wanted them to know,[br]I wanted to tell them

0:04:59.372,0:05:01.669
and this became the focus of my obsession.

0:05:01.669,0:05:05.464
I busied myself telling stories[br]and sharing stories and collecting them.

0:05:05.464,0:05:08.487
And it's not until recently[br]that I realized

0:05:08.487,0:05:11.952
that I can't always rush poetry.

0:05:11.952,0:05:16.108
In April for National Poetry Month[br]there's this challenge that,

0:05:16.108,0:05:18.669
many poets in the poetry[br]community participate in,

0:05:18.669,0:05:21.057
and its called the 30/30 Challenge.

0:05:21.223,0:05:23.978
The idea is you write[br]a new poem

0:05:24.003,0:05:26.798
every single day[br]for the entire month of April.

0:05:27.552,0:05:30.545
And last year I tried it for the first[br]time, and I was thrilled

0:05:30.545,0:05:34.001
by the efficiency at which I was able[br]to produce poetry.

0:05:34.001,0:05:38.309
But at the end of the month I looked[br]back at these 30 poems I had written,

0:05:38.309,0:05:42.402
and discovered that they were[br]all trying to tell the same story,

0:05:42.402,0:05:46.829
it had just taken me 30 tries to figure[br]out the way that it wanted to be told.

0:05:46.829,0:05:50.782
And I realized that this is probably true[br]of other stories on an even larger scale.

0:05:50.782,0:05:53.211
I have stories that I have[br]tried to tell for years,

0:05:53.235,0:05:57.062
rewriting and rewriting and constantly[br]searching for the right words.

0:05:57.062,0:06:01.016
There's a French poet, an essayist[br]by the name of Paul Valery

0:06:01.016,0:06:04.743
who said a poem is never[br]finished, it is only abandoned.

0:06:04.743,0:06:07.263
And this terrifies me[br]because it implies that

0:06:07.263,0:06:11.002
I could keep reediting and rewriting[br]forever and its up to me to decide

0:06:11.002,0:06:15.763
when a poem is finished and when[br]I can walk away from it.

0:06:15.763,0:06:18.716
And this goes directly against my very[br]obsessive nature to try

0:06:18.740,0:06:22.313
to find the right answer, and the perfect[br]words, and the right form.

0:06:22.313,0:06:24.138
And I use poetry in my life,

0:06:24.163,0:06:27.011
as a way to help me navigate[br]and work through things.

0:06:27.011,0:06:30.047
But just because I end the poem,[br]doesn't mean that I've solved

0:06:30.047,0:06:33.144
whatever I was puzzling through.

0:06:33.144,0:06:34.764
I like to revisit old poetry,

0:06:34.764,0:06:38.611
because it shows me exactly[br]where I was at that moment.

0:06:38.611,0:06:41.197
And what it was I was trying[br]to navigate and the words

0:06:41.197,0:06:43.090
that I chose to help me.

0:06:43.090,0:06:44.542
Now, I have a story

0:06:44.567,0:06:47.098
that I've been stumbling[br]over for years and years

0:06:47.098,0:06:50.034
and I'm not sure if I've found[br]the prefect form,

0:06:50.034,0:06:52.064
or whether this is just one attempt

0:06:52.064,0:06:53.973
and I will try to rewrite it later

0:06:53.973,0:06:55.827
in search of a better way to tell it.

0:06:55.827,0:06:59.106
But I do know that later, when I look back

0:06:59.106,0:07:01.735
I will be able to know[br]that this is where I was

0:07:01.735,0:07:05.009
at this moment, and this[br]is what I was trying to navigate,

0:07:05.009,0:07:09.686
with these words, here,[br]in this room, with you.

0:07:10.732,0:07:12.925
So -- Smile.

0:07:19.864,0:07:22.521
It didn't always work this way.

0:07:22.521,0:07:25.011
There is a time you have[br]to get your hands dirty.

0:07:25.011,0:07:29.029
When you were in the dark,[br]for most of it, fumbling was a given,

0:07:29.029,0:07:32.076
and you needed more[br]contrast, more saturation,

0:07:32.076,0:07:35.004
darker darks, and brighter brights.

0:07:35.004,0:07:38.049
They called it extended development.[br]It meant you spent

0:07:38.049,0:07:40.901
longer inhaling chemicals,[br]longer up to your wrist.

0:07:40.901,0:07:42.363
It wasn't always easy.

0:07:42.363,0:07:45.041
Grandpa Stewart was a navy photographer.

0:07:45.041,0:07:48.311
Young, red-faced[br]with the sleeves rolled up,

0:07:48.311,0:07:51.412
fists of fingers like fat rolls of coins,

0:07:51.412,0:07:54.513
he looked like Popeye[br]the sailor man, come to life.

0:07:54.513,0:07:56.245
Crooked smile, tuft of chest hair,

0:07:56.245,0:07:59.771
he showed up at World War II,[br]with a smirk and a hobby.

0:07:59.771,0:08:02.420
When they asked him if he knew[br]much about photography,

0:08:02.420,0:08:06.280
he lied, learned to read[br]Europe like a map,

0:08:06.280,0:08:09.018
upside down, from the height[br]of a fighter plane,

0:08:09.018,0:08:12.086
camera snapping, eyelids[br]flapping, the darkest darks

0:08:12.086,0:08:14.009
and brightest brights.

0:08:14.009,0:08:17.019
He learned war like he could[br]read his way home.

0:08:17.019,0:08:20.146
When other men returned,[br]they would put their weapons out to rest,

0:08:20.203,0:08:22.967
but he, brought the lenses[br]and the cameras home with him.

0:08:22.967,0:08:25.650
Opened a shop, turned it[br]into a family affair.

0:08:25.650,0:08:29.043
My father was born into this[br]world of black and white.

0:08:29.043,0:08:32.604
His basketball hands learned[br]the tiny clicks and slides

0:08:32.604,0:08:35.063
of lens into frame, film into camera,

0:08:35.063,0:08:37.000
chemical into plastic bin.

0:08:37.000,0:08:40.014
His father knew the equipment[br]but not the art.

0:08:40.014,0:08:42.001
He knew the darks but not the brights.

0:08:42.001,0:08:46.024
My father learned the magic,[br]spent his time following light.

0:08:46.024,0:08:48.990
Once he traveled across the country[br]to follow a forest fire,

0:08:48.990,0:08:51.968
hunted it with his camera for a week.

0:08:51.968,0:08:54.299
"Follow the light," he said.

0:08:54.299,0:08:55.830
"Follow the light."

0:08:55.830,0:08:58.497
There are parts of me[br]I only recognize from photographs.

0:08:58.521,0:09:01.512
The loft on Wooster street[br]with the creaky hallways,

0:09:01.512,0:09:04.517
the twelve-foot ceilings,[br]the white walls and cold floors.

0:09:04.517,0:09:07.293
This was my mothers home,[br]before she was mother.

0:09:07.293,0:09:10.237
Before she was wife, she was artist.

0:09:10.237,0:09:11.960
And the only two rooms in the house,

0:09:11.960,0:09:14.532
with walls that reached[br]all the way up to the ceiling,

0:09:14.532,0:09:16.159
and doors that opened and closed,

0:09:16.159,0:09:18.711
were the bathroom and the dark room.

0:09:18.711,0:09:21.045
The dark room she built[br]herself, with custom made

0:09:21.069,0:09:25.010
stainless steel sinks,[br]an 8 by 10 bed enlarger

0:09:25.010,0:09:27.153
that moved up and down by a giant[br]hand crank,

0:09:27.177,0:09:29.056
a bank of color balanced lights,

0:09:29.056,0:09:31.408
a white glass wall for viewing prints,

0:09:31.408,0:09:33.863
a drying rack that moved[br]in and out from the wall.

0:09:33.863,0:09:35.930
My mother built herself a dark room.

0:09:35.930,0:09:37.076
Made it her home.

0:09:37.076,0:09:39.985
Fell in love with a man[br]with basketball hands,

0:09:39.985,0:09:42.265
with the way he looked at light.

0:09:42.265,0:09:44.364
They got married. Had a baby.

0:09:44.364,0:09:46.013
Moved to a house near a park.

0:09:46.013,0:09:49.008
But they kept the loft at Wooster street

0:09:49.008,0:09:50.913
for birthday parties and treasure hunts.

0:09:50.937,0:09:53.611
The baby tipped the gray scale.

0:09:53.611,0:09:56.083
Filled her parents' photo[br]albums with red balloons

0:09:56.083,0:09:57.173
and yellow icing.

0:09:57.173,0:09:59.535
The baby grew into a girl[br]without freckles,

0:09:59.535,0:10:01.002
with a crooked smile,

0:10:01.002,0:10:05.711
who didn’t understand why her friends did[br]not have dark rooms in their houses,

0:10:05.711,0:10:07.490
who never saw her parents kiss,

0:10:07.490,0:10:09.449
who never saw them hold hands.

0:10:09.449,0:10:11.164
But one day, another baby showed up.

0:10:11.188,0:10:14.856
This one with perfect straight[br]hair and bubble gum cheeks.

0:10:14.856,0:10:16.570
They named him sweet potato.

0:10:16.570,0:10:18.423
When he laughed, he laughed so loudly,

0:10:18.423,0:10:20.361
he scared the pigeons on the fire escape

0:10:20.361,0:10:23.262
And the four of them lived[br]in that house near the park.

0:10:23.262,0:10:25.903
The girl with no freckles,[br]and the sweet potato boy,

0:10:25.903,0:10:28.142
the basketball father,[br]and the dark room mother

0:10:28.166,0:10:30.872
and they lit their candles,[br]and they said their prayers,

0:10:30.872,0:10:33.698
and the corners of the photographs curled.

0:10:33.698,0:10:35.750
One day some towers fell

0:10:35.750,0:10:39.853
and the house near the park became[br]a house under ash, so they escaped.

0:10:39.853,0:10:45.008
In backpacks, on bicycles to darkrooms[br]but the loft of Wooster street

0:10:45.008,0:10:48.812
was built for an artist,[br]not a family of pigeons

0:10:48.812,0:10:50.775
and walls that do not reach the ceiling

0:10:50.775,0:10:52.090
do not hold in the yelling

0:10:52.090,0:10:56.745
and a man with basketball hands[br]put his weapons out to rest.

0:10:56.745,0:11:00.008
He could not fight this war[br]and no maps pointed home.

0:11:00.008,0:11:01.678
His hands no longer fit his camera,

0:11:01.678,0:11:03.360
no longer fit his wife's,

0:11:03.360,0:11:05.858
no longer fit his body.

0:11:05.858,0:11:08.713
The sweet potato boy mashed[br]his fists into his mouth

0:11:08.713,0:11:10.285
until he had nothing more to say.

0:11:10.309,0:11:14.022
So, the girl without freckles[br]went treasure hunting on her own.

0:11:14.022,0:11:17.638
And on Wooster street, in a building[br]with a creaky hallways,

0:11:17.638,0:11:19.490
and a loft of the 12-foot ceiling

0:11:19.490,0:11:21.482
and a darkroom with too many sinks

0:11:21.482,0:11:24.028
under the color balance[br]light, she found a note,

0:11:24.028,0:11:28.941
tacked to the wall thumb-tacked, left[br]over from the times before towers,

0:11:28.941,0:11:31.485
from the time before babies.

0:11:31.485,0:11:37.007
And the note said: "A guy sure loves[br]the girl who works in the darkroom."

0:11:37.007,0:11:40.944
It was a year before my father[br]picked up a camera again.

0:11:40.944,0:11:43.578
His first time out, he followed[br]the Christmas lights,

0:11:43.578,0:11:46.013
dotting their way through New[br]York City's trees.

0:11:46.013,0:11:50.967
Tiny dots of light, blinking out of him[br]from out of the darkest darks.

0:11:50.967,0:11:53.030
A year later he traveled[br]across the country

0:11:53.055,0:11:54.873
to follow a forest fire,

0:11:54.873,0:11:57.527
stayed for a week hunting[br]it with his camera,

0:11:57.527,0:11:59.497
it was ravaging the West Coast

0:11:59.497,0:12:01.481
eating 18-wheeler trucks in its stride.

0:12:01.481,0:12:03.062
On the other side of the country,

0:12:03.062,0:12:06.062
I went to class and wrote a poem[br]on the margins of my notebook.

0:12:06.086,0:12:08.765
We have both learned the art of capture.

0:12:08.765,0:12:11.398
Maybe we are learning[br]the art of embracing.

0:12:11.448,0:12:14.873
Maybe we are learning[br]the art of letting go.

0:12:16.005,0:12:21.166
Thank You. (Applause)