Mateo was born just after Tanya’s dad died. Tanya’s a poet; she met Jeremy, Mateo’s dad, at a rock show. Her mom is Italian and she wasn’t sure she was supposed to be in the picture. Tanya has a sister and Mateo has a cousin., 2017

Chiyuma was born in Sweden. Her family’s property is close enough to the coast that it keeps cool. They hauled a house onto the property for Chi’s sister Sarah. Her stepfather is courtly. When her mom talks about the trees, she plunges into reverie. Everyone in the family is good at making things with their hands and one of the men makes music., 2017

A park near their house. You think eucalyptus trees are native to California because there’s so many of them but they’re not. Carlos’ sister isn’t in the picture. She’s visiting a friend. The other side of the hill, away from the view of the bay. Different trees. They don’t all have the same father. Big families on every side., 2017

They served us three different kinds of ceviche at their house in Richmond. Daniela was due at the end of June, and she warned her family that there was poison oak everywhere. Her brother thinks like an engineer., 2017

The day after Christmas. Mike lives in Cincinnati, Molly lives in Los Angeles, Katie lives in Albany, M’lis lives up the hill and Chris lives in the poolhouse. The girls go to Berkeley and they’re not around as much anymore. Ron’s Sheila died in 2008 & Nancy’s Skip in 1995., 2017

They just came back from Jamaica. It was Father’s Day. They spoke of Max in the present tense, their brother and son who passed away. When they brought Peija home they didn’t change her name. Peg lives in the city, pretty close to home. She loves talking about her sister., 2017

Towan and Tae’s parents were about to go back to Korea for the first time in years. Aska is Polish and Artlyn is an architect. The boys ran around with sticks in their hands like swords. Aska talked about fairy tales. She said maybe it was good to hear about something scary, that maybe it gave you some skills for living, that the stories shouldn’t be sanitized. Sometimes you have to pay to get into the grove but this day, it was free., 2017

Eli’s first day as “they,” or one of them. His sister lives far away, in the Pacific Northwest. Lucy and Richard wanted the picture of themselves in front of the cut tree. The name of their street is Tory Fort Lane., 2017

Scenes from a Forest, 2017
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21 min. 42 sec.