Gallery Walk

I knew I was supposed to go take photos this weekend.  I didn't want to.  

"Supposed to?"

Internal insistence.  Something.  But I couldn't bring myself to do it on Saturday, and Sunday morning I still wasn't feeling the vibe, and not wanting to waste another brilliant day, I decided to do some yard work at my mother's.  First, though, I would take a walk, another three miler, down a park pathway in my mother's neighborhood.  The morning was pretty.  The trail was busy with bike riders, joggers, and people like me just out for a morning stroll. I did O.K. I thought, not hurting the way I had on Saturday.  

When I got back to my mother's, I decided to get to work.  I picked up the big clippers with the extendable handles from the tool hanger and began trimming the branches of her big Crepe Myrtles.  I had trimmed them at the beginning of the summer, I think, but they had grown bushy at the bottom and had sent new branches skyward.  What a mess.  

Using with those big clippers was real work for an old boy, and bending and clipping the growth at the bottom was hard on my back, my neck, my shoulders. . . hell, it was just hard for every joint and bone.  It wasn't muscular, though.  Oh, no--I'm a real cowboy.  Just too many broken bones.  

I worked away for what seemed days, but was, in fact, just more than an hour.  The day had grown warmer and I was soaked through and through.  I sat inside with my mother and drank a Pedialyte. 

"Boy, you sure were doing some cutting out there."

It was past noon, and I felt good about the day.  If I did nothing else, I'd done something.  It was psychologically lifting.  There were still many projects that needed doing, but I was sure I would.  

Pretty sure.  

Rather.  

By the time I'd gotten back to my house and showered, it was mid-afternoon.  I sat down at the computer to order some supplements on Amazon, and of a sudden, I felt weak.  Shaky.  I grabbed a bottle out of the 'fridge and drank more Pedialyte.  I would have eaten something, but, of course, there is no food in my own home.  

Three o'clock.  I didn't want to do anything, but I needed to do something.  I grabbed the Leica and the keys to the Xterra.  I'd just go to the pop-up vintage market and see.  

There were crowds of people milling about the street around the brewery where the market was taking place.  With no possible place to park for miles, and knowing it was closed, I drove back to my buddy's camera repair shop and pulled into his parking spot not far from the mob.  Getting out of the car, though, I was still feeling shaky.  I walked slowly toward the market sure that I didn't want to go.  But what's a man to do?  

I was the only one with a camera.  

That photo at the top of the page was the first one I took.  It turned out to be the best one of the day.  I don't know where that light flare came from, but it works.  It looks like a light leak on a film camera. It's a snotty picture, I think, or would be hanging in a gallery.  It is a WTF picture that would be, by hanging in a gallery, validated in some way you just didn't get, but you'd try, and then move onto the next.  

This was one of the last photos I took, another snotty photo.  I only wandered around the marketplace for a bit.  It began at noon, and now, moving on to four, I guessed the fashion crowd had come and gone for the most part.  I mean, you'd want to get there early before the best weird clothing or concert t-shirt had been bought up, wouldn't you?  I wandered through the stalls wishing I had stayed home.  I was lacking something more than motivation.  Confidence, maybe.  Or, I may just be slowing down with age.  Maybe the morning had simply worn me out.  I'd hate to admit that, of course, on the one hand, but on the other, yea. . . I'd like to hire people to do that shit, too. 

So I took a knee, so to speak, left the market, and sat on the steps of a not open on Sunday business to scroll through the photos I had taken.  And that is where I photographed the elusive manhole cover and the broken street. 

And so the gallery goer moves on. 

And again--WTF?  

"Why is this out of focus?  Is this supposed to be good?"

Sure.  I mean the photographer is protecting the identities of the people on the street.  They aren't people anymore but figures, you know?  It's not "blurry," it's time lapsed. It really is in focus.  

Move on. 

"Now we're talking.  I guess the photographer was protecting the identity of this shopper, too."

Au contraire, my friend.  I was shooting from the hip with a 35mm lens where I should have been using a 28 in such close quarters.  This is shameful, really, a mere accident.  Still, you know, it captures something of the essence of the vintage clothing crowd.  

I didn't end up with very many photos on the day, but I had gotten out among the throng and into the gentle afternoon air, so it had been a pretty good day.  

I guess. 

I had only spoken to my mother and a random guy walking his dog while I was sitting on the stairs, and he for only a brief moment.  Even out, I'm still living in isolation.  

Isolato.  A mere reflection in a shop window, fading into disembodied incorporeity. 

It was time to get back to mother's.  I had beans to make, a bean soup with chicken and cut carrots, onions, and celery.  

In the pressure cooker.  

I made a cocktail.  

"It takes hours to cook dry beans."

"No, they will be ready in an hour." 

"Really?  No."

"Mom, how many times have I made beans for you?  An hour."

"Well, we'll see."

In an hour, I dished the soup into big bowls. It was the best meal of the week, and the best part of the day.  There is nothing like a good, hearty soup to put a man back on his horse.  

Today I will have lunch with C.C. who I haven't seen since the beginning of the year.  I'm hoping I still know how to keep up my end of the conversation, but since I have nothing to tell, I hope I will be a good listener.  

I've been pretty good at listening to this.