Dust Mote

I took this photo from the backseat of a NYC cab.  Just arrived, headed to my hotel, I was excited to start shooting.  There is nothing notable about this photograph. . . but for this.  How often, when I take a photo of a group of people, is someone looking at me?  There seems often to be at least one.  

In this shot, even though I am fairly obscured, there are three people looking directly into the camera.  I find this spooky.  Is is just me?  Do I get more attention than other photographers?  I think that when I am on the street, of course I might, as I don't quite look anonymous.  But from the backseat of a cab?  You can see in the full frame photo that I am quite far away and half obscured by the cab's window.  I don't know.  I'm just saying.  It spooks me.  

People are freaking here in the Sunshine State at the potential hurricane forming in the Caribbean.  There are models predicting a path, but nobody knows what it will do yet.  But BE PREPARED!  Some of my friends are blaming me because I celebrated the equinox. "You cursed us," they say.  

"It's not a curse," I reply.  "It is nature."

I try to remain calm, but I have PTSD, of course, after I spent more money than I had or repairing the apartment after Charlie destroyed it.  Money and labor, nearly a year of it.  When the storm clouds form and the wind begins to blow, I am paralyzed with fear and want to crawl under the bed and go to sleep.  Unfortunately, my bed frame is too low to the ground for such a thing and so I sit in a fetal position remaining very, very still.  I can't help it.  The terror grips me.  

But we will have to wait a couple days to see.  There will be no bottled water or batteries or toilet paper at the grocery stores soon.  I'm glad I have a bidet.  But my hands tremble just a bit as I write this now.  

In the main, though, I have given up on worrying about things I can't control.  And that is almost everything.  People like to think they have some power over what happens, but I have come to the conclusion that we are like dust motes blown here and there by even the slightest of disturbances.  Do you know how much a gallon of gas costs now?  I don't.  I don't look. What can I do, bargain with the kid at the counter?  The price of anything, really.  I just don't know.  If I pay attention, I'll get upset.  When I think about the need to buy a new car soon, I DO freak because I have to look at the prices.  A new roof?  A new HVAC system?  All together?  I'd be bankrupt.  

What can I do?  It is all too much and I have no control.  

I have far too many things in my life to overwhelm me without paying attention to what might happen.  

"Safety First!"

If only.  

I've always been more like the grasshopper than the ant (link).  Selavy.  

There are heartening things, though.  A hummingbird came to the garden on the last day of summer.  Hummingbirds here are a rarity.  I went most of my life living here without ever seeing one.  It was the garden's red flowers that brought them.  They are the slightest of hummingbirds, hardly bigger than your thumb, and are an iridescent green with a ruby ring around their necks.  I have read that they weigh less than a penny.  Some believe they have magical powers.  Watching them, it is easy enough to wonder.  

One of the most terrible things about weather disasters is that you must wish them on someone else in order to avoid them.  

"Go to Alabama.  Go to Louisiana.  Go to Texas."

It is a terrible thing, but what can one do?  

T may be coming over to try to fix the drain pipe on the sink in the bathroom today.  I have in invitation to a factory party in Factory City, too, and I will take the train up if we finish working in time.  I would like to go, but I need to get the repair done more.  I have many repairs that need to be made, and I am just not the man to do them.  I will hire those who are and be a little less financially secure because of it.  I really don't like relying on a friend to do a repair for me.  Nothing good can come of it.  But today, we will try, for otherwise it will cost me about a thousand dollars according to the plumber who came and said he would have to tear a wall out.  

Whatever.  I'm a dust mote.  By and large, things are beyond me.