hildreth

Some days are easier than others, but most of the time, I deviate from my instructed diet. It scares me, because my father did this too and he had diabetes. I'm finding it difficult to avoid social drinking situations, or dinner plans at a restaurant too tempting to pass up. Though, as I make way into my 29th year, I'm finding old social gathering and drinking situations really have little place in my life anymore.

I was born in Westminster, Colorado. Perhaps 5 minutes from where I live now. Most of my time has been cruising the circuit of dive bars from 80th to 120th, between Wadsworth and I-25. Karaoke. Shots of Jack, neat. Pitchers of Bud Light. Dive bar waitresses. Most of the dive bars used to have a pungent odor of smoke so thick my clothes wore it as a reminder the next day. New laws cleared the air. Something peaceful about worn wood tables, low light, and decades of pop hits blaring across the bar.

Individuals become groups. They're named after the restaurant they work at, most likely that night. Certain dives become regular hangouts, but even that is tiring to the accomplished drinker. Packs of restaurant folk go round and round, bar to bar, drinking, driving, singing, loving, fucking, and waking up in a blur of what once was, and what is to be. Not all are guilty, but most partake in this deviant social behavior in the restaurant field. I briefly worked at Old Chicago on 88th & Wadsworth. I met Lisa there. My second girlfriend. She had recently split up with her husband, but had not yet filed the paperwork, somewhere in the winter of 2005. I distinctly remember clashing with her almost immediately upon meeting with her. One thing lead to another, and in the blurring of restaurant social behavior, I ended up sleeping on her couch a few nights, and we then began a relationship.

This marked a great adventure for me. One which I never dreamed of wanting, or ever needing. I was riding the coattails of a well-read dreamer. She was a Classics major, among other things. Her life had been mixed with days of partying, escaping from responsibility, alongside the dream of cafes in Montmartre, the gardens of Versailles, and other landmarks in old stories. I had a vague idea of what to see: London, Paris, and Madrid. Things I used to read about in history books. Kings, knights, castles, old ships, the Mediterranean. Nothing could prepare me for what I would encounter over the next 90 days.

Without expanding much upon the source of our income for the trip, for the sake of privacy, let's just say we were able to travel "well," experiencing each country the way it should be. We backpacked the streets, rode trains across the continent, and did some inter-continental flying. If it isn't clear by now, we took a 6-month, up-and-down relationship overseas and toured Europe. Some of you know this story, but for those of you who don't, Lisa and I saw 16 countries in 90 days during the summer of 2006. In order of travel: London, France, Spain, Italy, The Vatican City, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Hungary, Austria, Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, Amsterdam, Belgium, and Ireland. Coming from a childhood playing make-believe in fields near my trailer home, or living in 2 bedroom apartments in Westminster, this was perhaps the single most eye opening experience of my life in terms of culture.

I wielded my Sony point-and-shoot camera the entire trip. Many of the photos can now be found on my personal facebook profile and there are even some prints floating around in my closet. They do nothing in terms to describe or show the influence these places had on who I am as a man, and who I hope to become as an artist. The main focus of our trip quickly became art museums across Europe. Picasso. Van Gogh. Monet. Manet. Old homes of fallen historical figures: Anne Frank, Oscar Wilde, James Joyce. I specialized in literature most of my high-school and college career, so visiting the former homes of these authors was interesting. Its strange to walk into homes owned and operated by museums. How many years will these places be relevant points of interest? For some, its already been a hundred if not more. Some, even four or five hundred, hence Versailles.

Walking through the tailored gardens of Versailles and the painted halls of the palace really set an image of Europe in my mind. One of royalty, of beauty and prestige. I've always had a particular fondness of the stories of Sir Thomas Mallory (King Arthur). All across Europe, each country proudly paid homage to their royal lines and their former estates. It really brought life to the tales of chivalry I had read in my teens. Before I had anything to do with photography, I wrote a lot of fictional stories about fantastical spins on this era of civilization. Standing on the doorstep of these places almost felt familiar, maybe it was from my lineage. Either way, Europe started to refine the way I viewed art, culture, and life. Breaks in the afternoon. Cups of tea. 800-year-old bridges. Castles on cliffs. Teutonic churches built on islands, tucked away in the mountains. Guernica by Picasso. Gaudi architecture. Belgium waffles. The resting place of King Henry the V and Sir Arthur Wellesley. Waves rushing the Cliffs of Moher, standing at what seemed to be the edge of infinity.

What an adventure.