The walking project has been on forced hiatus for a while–injury, work, life–that’s also prompted an identity crisis of sorts. What exactly and why exactly am I doing (with) these videos? The answer, as should have been obvious from the get go, lies in walking. I had to ramble a few miles in the foothills overlooking the buzzing city bathed in a filtered, soft winter afternoon light to rekindle the passion, and if not find the path forward, at least understand anew why I am walking it in the first place. It’s a way of coping with the constant brouhaha, the visual carpet-bombing, the sensory warp speed of life in laid-back Los Angeles; it’s an escape, but not an avoidance. It’s a way of absorbing the landscape, of growing a sense of place and belonging. One step at a time, I fill in my own map of the world, charted with idiosyncratic observations, chance encounters and an ever-increasing belief in the power of looking up and around, listening to the wind and the birds, slowing down.

“When the yellow leaf dropped from the tree…it struck me how that will never happen again, with that particular leaf.”

Jerry Ellis, “Walking the Trail, One man’s journey along the cherokee trail of tears”.