Jaimie

Jaimie. A remarkable Korean-American girl, raised in LA, Jaimie came over from physics. Young, brilliant, she took the seminar three semesters in a row--rarely said a word, but everyone knew she was present. Made these rumpled photos--curled, that is, which clearly felt true to her. To me as well. A particular honesty, even in the face of convention. Actually, that's what she struggled with--a demanding family with big plans for her future--a husband, a settled home--the family fold, predictablity. And not necessarily the wrong thing, except that it wasn't Jaimie.

I showed them photographs by Sylvia Plachy once--the Village Voice photographer who'd immigrated from Hungary, curiously beautiful images from all over New York, the paper kept her on salary just to wander around and take them. Published one a week...  Jaimie discovered that Sylvia Plachy was offering a workshop in New Orleans. Found a way to go. (I think I helped...)

It changed her, things happened, not necessarily the best. That was in 2010, I think. I don't know for sure, we lost touch. I've tried to find her many times since, we have a mutual friend or two--dark stories, el lado oscuro del corazón. (Thinking of Valde now, too.) I saw the future in a snapshot she once sent me, the two of them, side by side--on their faces. I didn't know how to tell her.

Must one always speak out? Life takes its own course, each of us with our own necessity. Even with all we share--dreams, fears, love...
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Actually, Jaimie did speak up once. Another woman in the group, loquacious and a little too self-assured, would put up projects  that somehow always felt empty--nothing inside. As if that were the point. This happened for several weeks in a row, until finally, one evening, Jaimie exploded. In an unpredictably loud voice, enraged, right in the woman's face:  "Why are you wasting our time?"
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She gave me the red doll figure, too. It's there next to her photos. A token of childhood, I think...

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