I worked on the aftermath of Helene in my yard yesterday. No damage, really, but there were lots of small branches and much detritus littering the yard, so I got with my rake and went to work. I'm not as spry as I used to be by a long shot, and/so stooping and bending and straightening up were making me sweat like a drunk in the 98% humidity. The air still felt "storm-ish." I wanted to just say fuck it and leave it all until Monday when the yardmen came, but I didn't want to be "that" neighbor whose yard looked like a hillbilly holler all weekend, so I toiled on.
And I am feeling it today. My lower back is barking.
I had done all this after the gym, so maybe that added to my displeasure, but after a soak and a shower, I had an afternoon to do whatever I wanted. Since it still felt sickly outside, I decided to download the photos from my Canon with the Holga lens attached. I have cameras full of images I haven't downloaded for--how long--a month? Maybe more. I can't explain why. Maybe it is my sincere belief that there is nothing good on any of them, that there are only images that will confirm my suspicions that I have lost all creativity. I have to believe that that is it.
But the morning Helene was to arrive, I took my Holga lens on a walk with me around and through the Boulevard. It was early. Almost no one was about. There was an eerie feeling as we were not sure what was to come. Shops were closed. Few cars roamed. I had no one to look at me, a scraggly man with a camera, certainly someone and something to suspect. It is my own hometown, and I do not like to be seen making photographs by people who recognize me without knowing me. I have to live here. It is where I go out.
Having done the heroic, though, picking up the yard and all, and now clean as a proverbial bean, the world beyond my air conditioned home sticky and dull, I decided I would pop in the card from my Canon camera just to see. And as the images emerged. . . oo-la-la! They weren't great, but they were not evidence of an obvious dullard. That camera and lens combo, though, makes almost everything look interesting to me. The pictures are blurry and atmospheric, the images of a somnambulist. Yea. . . yea.
I worked one up. I mean, I put some post-production touches to it. Unsurprisingly, I couldn't remember what I had been doing to the images before. I never write anything down, and much gets forgotten and lost. So I started from scratch, and what I discovered anew thrilled me. I made discoveries I hadn't before, applying settings in a new order, leaving out some half-remembered steps, substituting new ones.
And not writing anything down.
The phone rang. It was my mother. I had written her that morning that I was going to the gym and might stop by to pick up the tree litter in her yard for her. She had written back to tell me she had gotten up early and done that, so I felt no need to go over early in the day.
"Hi. Where are you?"
Confused, "I'm at home."
"Oh. I didn't hear from you. I thought you were coming over."
"You wrote and told me you had already picked up the yard, so. . . ."
"I picked up some big stuff, but there is still a lot left lying around."
Jesus. Now I was feeling terrible.
"Oh. Well I'll do it."
"I wanted to tell you I'm going to the grocery store. Do you need anything?"
"I have to go before I cook tonight, so no. If you are going to the store, I'm going to get some tea before I come over then."
I looked at the clock. It was after three. I had time. I thought I'd try a green tea with milk today. I'm not really a tea drinker and didn't know if tea with milk was a thing. I'd ask. I packed up my bag and grabbed my new X100vi. I heard the ping of the computer. I sat down to read the message. There were several. It was getting late. I would need to hurry.
When I got to the cafe, the parking lot was full. I tried parallel parking on the side street without success, so I drove across the road and parked in the liquor store lot on the other side. I'd asked once, and they said they wouldn't tow me. I was counting on that.
When I walked in, there was a line to the door. The new girl was working, and she was anything but quick. She had that astonished and amazed look on her face as she stared at everything she did with great deliberation, eyes wide, seemingly unbelieving that she was now at the counter and not working in the kitchen. Time passed. Quickly. Ten minutes. Fifteen. I don't know. All about me were photographs needing to be taken. I watched the counter girl, low slung tight pants, a bare midriff, flat tanned belly, the shapely upper arms of youth. She is the one with the friend who used to work in the kitchen with her, her bleach blonde twin, the '70s NYC punkers I've wanted to photograph together slouching, arms over shoulders, forever. I watched her work the expensive espresso machine wanting to make a photo, but I knew it would be inappropriate.
When I finally got to the counter, she smiled and asked for my order. I knew I would confuse her if I talked about a latte tea or whatever it was I had imagined, so I asked for a decaf latte. As she was making it, I looked away, stared at the mess of pictures on the walls, the hundred beers in the cooler, anything but her. I had my camera in hand. To look at her would simply break my heart.
By the time I sat down, I should have been driving to my mother's. I calculated time and distance and what I would have to do. I wouldn't be eating until later than I wanted. I had only eaten a yogurt all day. I wanted to sit before dinner on the deck with the cat and smoke a cheroot and drink a. . . no. . . I was considering taking a break. Maybe a Dry October. But next weekend is Octoberfest. That's no good. I considered simply not drinking at home, only out with friends, a sort of Damp October. But I wanted to sit on the deck with a cheroot, so maybe only beer and wine at home. I don't drink so much when I stick to that.
I sipped my decaf and tried pairing my camera to my phone. Failure. Failure. Failure. Success. . . sort of.
Time marched on. I looked to the small bar where a group of older hipster women had taken up all the stools. They were Strangers for sure, tatted, fuck you hair, vintage clothing. The 6'2" goony goon girl was tending bar. They commented and laughed in that rat-a-tat conversation of friends at ease. Another picture untaken, another story untold.
I finished my latte and headed to the car. It was late, and I was pissed and resentful at my daily obligation. And that gave me great guilt. So, I got on the road and pointed the car in the direction of mother's.
Ahead of me was the sometime road jam. There were big yellow school buses as far as the eye could see interspersed with cars and frustrated drivers.
Fuck it! I did a U-turn and told Siri to call my mother.
"I'm not coming over," I told her. "Everything has taken too much time and the roadway is jammed with buses and cars. I won't get over there for another half hour. I'm just going to go to the grocery store and go home."
I was angry with myself and felt deep rage and profound guilt. I was pissed by that, too. Who goes to see their mother every day? Who is more attentive? I shouldn't feel bad. I should be able to have the occasional reprieve.
The thought didn't help.
It would be a simple dinner. I needed to stop drinking and eat healthy and lose weight. Raking the yard had taught me that. Brown rice, broccoli, and chicken. That is the meal of champions. Fuck it. And Guinness. That is a light beer. That is what I'd have.
A Guinness on the deck with a cheroot. No Campari. I was feeling slimmer already. I watched the walkers passing by. And just before I was finished, the little feral cat showed.
"OK, OK. . . you know I'll feed you."
What would happen when I died, I wondered. So much depends on me.
I watched a YouTube video on how to set up my new camera while I ate. Dinner was perfect and the video helped tremendously. I put the dishes in the sink. . . and poured and after dinner whiskey.
Fuck me. I didn't care. It was good, the best I'd ever had.
Nine o'clock. I watched an episode of one of "my shows." It breaks me up. That is how my friend who moved to the midwest describes it. "You've got to watch your shows," she says with a sarcastic laugh.
Ten o'clock. I decided to go to the computer and cook up more of those Canon Holga photos. I put on the music. The world changed. I had been anxious all day, then, as if someone had pulled the lever to a trap door, I had plunged into an uncertain despair. It wasn't an unwarranted feeling. I knew what it was and why. I've been subjected to it many times lately. It is awful, this despair, and I yearn for something. . . some relief.
But sitting at the computer with The Music and a bunch of photos to work on. . . it was like "olden times." I was transported. I felt happy and productive and out of this mundane world.
Boom! The power went out. Everything was pitch black. I sat and waited sure that it would come back on quickly.
It didn't. I inched my way to the hallway where I had a small LED flashlight on a shelf. I turned it on. It was bright and lit the rooms. I stepped outside and saw that the power was out for as far as the eye could see. I sat with a whiskey and waited and thought. After awhile, the world dark and quiet, I decided to go to bed.
I fell straight to sleep. When I woke somewhere in the middle of the night, the lights were on. I got up to turn them off. It was two.
Maybe I feel more hopeful this morning. I don't know yet. I will walk with my little camera, but if I take shit pictures or worse, none at all, I may tumble down that slippery slope once again. I don't want to.
But whoever does.
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