Another beautiful Sunday. Another late start. I am paralytic, stymied. At noon, I decide to develop the film from the Artfest. I put two rolls of film, the developing tank and reels, and scissors inside the black tent, slip my hands through the elastic sleeves, and begin the fumbling process of unspooking the film, cutting off the backing, then spooling it back onto the takeup reel. It takes me awhile to get the film lined up properly.
Get the measuring cups and cylinders and jugs and mix the developer, then the fix. Fill the tank with water and agitate for a minute, then set the clock and do the same with the developer, the hypo, and then the fix. Etc.
I have music playing, and for 50 seconds of every minute, in between agitations, I dance. If you could see that. . . but it makes me feel good. It must be good for me.
I take the reels of developed film to the bathroom to hang them up to dry. They look good. Alright. I decide to go ahead and do the second batch.
Wash spin repeat. I take the two rolls out of the tank. They are blank, just clear plastic with a pinkish tint. WTF went wrong? I stand in dumb bewilderment. Had I mixed my chemicals wrong? Maybe I poured from the wrong jug. Piss shit fuck goddamn. I don't feel like dancing anymore.
It is almost two. What to do? I don't feel like walking uptown to the festival once again. I sit down at the computer and cook up some things. It is four. I call my mother.
"I have done it again," I tell her. "I spent another beautiful Sunday inside. I haven't left the house. I haven't showered. I'll come over in a bit."
I make a Negroni and go to the deck. I'm traveling through life with eyes closed, I think. No, I'm not travelling at all. I am not producing. Text come in every day from traveling friends. Japan, Sweden, Spain, Arizona, Chicago, Minnesota. . . . I feel my life slipping away.
I get into the car to drive to my mother's. I pass the usual walkers, people pushing baby carriages, women walking in pairs, husbands and wives, all looking self-satisfied, feeling successful. They are living a little upscale. New cars. Private schools. I think just then they are smug. What do they do? I mean other than make money and consume goods? What do they have to be smug about? Memberships at the Country Club?
I include myself in this crowd, unconscious, unaware.
How to wake up is the question. What buttons need to be pushed?
Banksy has been identified. He goes the way of all myths--the Loch Ness Monster, the Abominable Snowman. Everything must be known, every mystery solved.
The room feels full, yet nothing in it seems to hold. Two people share the same narrow space, the same quiet light, even the same small rituals, but something essential has slipped just out of reach—an understanding, a certainty, a reason for being there at all. Their gestures hover in hesitation, as if each is waiting for meaning to arrive from somewhere beyond the frame, and it never does. The morning coffee, the cigarette, the worn surfaces around them—these are anchors that promise solidity but dissolve into habit, leaving only the faint awareness that life continues without explanation. In that stillness, loneliness is not the absence of others, but the quiet realization that even in proximity, each person remains unknowable, filling the void with distractions and "things", each house, car, yard a reflection of others, the constant drone of dull sameness.
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