Photographs are not the only items that were recovered from the eviction site, i also came across 5 tiny notebooks, all completely full of nonsensical mental notes, reminders, and journal entries. I assume that they all are written by the same woman/mother. ( I hate that I have no title for this woman so i am forced to give her a pseudonym. . .Donna. This is the only name i have come across in reading all of the notebooks, and i feel it is appropriate for the time being).
What Donna chooses to keep track of is mind blowing. Page after page are identical “to do” lists, all of which are crossed out only to reappear a page or two later. Her journal entries are pages of run-on sentences. She uses no punctuation whatsoever and half of it doesn’t even make sense to me, practically incoherent/illegible.
Donna’s situation with her child Josh is heartbreaking. I know for certain from the owners of the house in which these two lived, that josh would be dropped off by social services every weekend only to stay in the dump that he called his home. Donna was never around, most likely avoiding her renters and money due. Josh would stay in the abandoned home all weekend alone, mind you this child is only 13. I assume social services had no idea of this, otherwise you would think they would do something about it. But then again, i wouldn’t be surprised if they did know and chose to just turn their heads.
This is where i really start to question all of this. Maybe this shouldn’t be brought to the public eye, maybe i should just throw all of this stuff away and forget about it/them. I am saddened by the situation, and feel guilty about using these people. I am torn and yet intrigued.
If anything, there is still something incredibly beautiful about scanning these items. The detail that becomes apparent, these objects are transformed so not only am i aware of the writing but also, the way the pages are worn and old, and the transparency of the material giving me hints of thoughts that carry on past this current page. I can’t control my desire to see/know more.
toni.