A Heat So Hot It Feels Cold To The Touch
One sunbleached childhood summer, while I was playing at a friend’s house, I stepped barefoot off of her trampoline and onto the blacktop-paved driveway. In vivid saturation, my feet plunged into icy water until I realized they were burning. I don’t remember much about that friendship—what she looked like, what games we played, how her house was decorated, the snacks in her parents’ fridge. But I clearly remember the lesson that something can feel so hot to the touch that the brain forgets the difference between hot and cold and only registers pain.
One dark adulthood winter, while I was taking a vacation, I visited some different friends in Silicon Valley, California. We visited El Palo Alto and the Stanford University campus, and I took some photographs of the flora interacting with the fauna interacting with the architecture. Like static friction losing a battle with potential energy, the paved ground buzzed with the possibility of greatness and achievement. I felt like I was wearing Howard Roark's sunglasses.
While staring wide open into the stone eyes of sphynx protecting Neoclassical architecture, I couldn’t help but believe in the existence of American royalty. I was boldly facing the coldness of our cultural imagination. Where there isn’t a sovereign ruler, is it possible that an idea can take a sovereign’s place?
