Friday, 22 February 2002 | Poker face

Apparently I kept a good poker face today; the pilot never knew that I was feeling queasy, that with each lurch of the plane, my stomach hovered in the air an extra second before dropping clumsily. I felt fine for the first two-thirds of the flight, until we began to circle above the paper plant. I was watching much of the scenery pass by with my right eye pressed up to the viewfinder of my camera, predominately through my 300 millimeter lens, which magnified the earth, but also rearranged my sense of perception. When combined with the smell of the paper plant (which I originally thought was a sewage plant), my head started to swim. I was a little surprised and disappointed, as I had hoped I was more hard-core than that.

Earlier, Martin and I had driven two hours east, through flat lands and past tobacco fields, clusters of trailers and double-wides, little brick churches that made liberal use of yard signs, strip clubs, and billboards: billboards signed by God, billboards advertising pork and pig kings and grocery stores named after pigs, billboards advertising oversized vehicles, and billboards advertising patriotism, all of which dwarfed the short, flat, widely-spaced architecture spread thin over the countryside. Among the fast-food restaurants and Wal-Marts and pork outlets and clusters of trailers, were old, dilapidated barns—wooden structures with rusty metal roofs that were falling in on themselves, as if they had been punched by a big fist from above.

We arrived at the airport at 10, met the pilot, walked around the plane a couple times, and, moments later, we were drifting over the edge of the state, taking pictures of a giant algae bloom, hog farms, and the deceptive beauty of pollution—the unnaturally bright colors of chemical waste, neon green wetlands, rose-colored lakes, thick white clouds that pour out of smoke stacks, and rivers decorated with brown stripes. But it was a clear, windless day, and from my vantage point, I could see the sun glaring off the water and the green tops of miniature trees and armies of birds down below. And, until my stomach reconsidered the trip, I enjoyed spying on the world and documenting it. I even took my first roll of infrared film, which takes pictures of heat, rather than of conventional images.

On the way home, we stopped at an army surplus store called Pappy's, where I bought a cheap pair of used combat boots and read rows of bumper stickers. For the first time, I thought about the meaning behind that childhood insult and I contemplated the history of my new shoes, shoes that have likely been in perpetual combat circulation. Had anyone been killed while these were worn? Including the person that wore them? Wow, this day was much more exciting than I'd anticipated two days ago, when I thought I'd be spending it confined to my cubicle in Durham.

See the pictures.