Blog Proper

My maiden blog post was rambling mania; I called it poetry. This time I will attempt paragraphs.

This morning began with another harsh, dream exodus. In my own lovely REM land, I was attempting to capture the perfect photograph. In my dream, it was an autumn day and golden leaf piles covered the ground surrounding an idyllic lake. The water was mirror smooth and reflected the remaining fire-red and burnt-orange leaves of the trees. From the shore, I noticed a small row boat floating into my field of vision, and, of course, the boat was filled with chocolate lab puppies. Although they were confined to the boat, they frolicked like they just popped out of a Hallmark movie. In the middle of the puppy pile was a towheaded boy, laughing and loving the puppy love. The boat was drifting slowly across the lake; I only had a certain amount of time to capture the scene of perfection. With happy anticipation, I raised the camera, centered the bliss image and “click,” nothing. “Click, click, click!” ---nothing, nothing, nothing. I looked at the camera--a switch was bent. I tried to adjust it. I pushed and yanked and fought the switch. The boat was floating past. The puppies were licking the boy’s face; his head was tilted just so in the autumn sun. His smile was like no other smile ever smiled. “Click, click, click!” The camera continued to fail. I was failing. I started to hold my breath; I started to panic. I couldn't let this moment go. I couldn't fail to capture the perfect perfection of it all. I continued to fight the camera, the boat continued to drift by, my breath held, and then, suddenly, it was all gone. “Mom, get up. Get up, Mom!” I exhaled loudly, like I had just resurfaced from a dive in the deep end of puppy-boat lake. The puppies, the lake, the leaves, the boy abruptly faded away. Another boy (maybe the same one) tugged on my blankets and demanded a Netflix show, a Pop tart, and assistance with Lego construction (in that order).  My breathing leveled as my feet found the cold, wood floor. I felt a little twinge; I mourned the puppy boat.

Perhaps this photography-themed figment developed because this has been a week of capturing moments. Pictures are important this time of year: the children’s music program time of year. After my son’s 1^st grade music program, the children were forced to maintain their positions on wobbly risers so the audience members could sufficiently capture the moment. Phone cameras were held high in the air, people were weaving, bending, ducking and contorting themselves through the crowd to get to the best picture-taking spots. As I watched the zombie-like press towards the stage, I was reminded of the time I made it to the front of the crowd during an Aerosmith concert. When I finally wiggled my way up to the middle of the ever-shifting-fan pit, I was nearly sucked under when a hulk-like security fellow picked me up by the seat of my pants and sent me on my merry way back to the very back of the arena. Of course, the music-program crowd wasn't quite as intense. But, I did detect a bit of panic in the air--the panic of “I need to get the perfect picture. I must capture this moment in time---the moment when my child sang an innocent song through a mouth that still contained baby teeth—the moment when he was still six years old.” 

While the parents and grandparents tried to ease that panic with a wild flicker of flashes, the children fidgeted and smiled their baby-teeth smiles. Static electricity caused their perfect coifs to rise and wave. The little stars of the show began elbowing each other and expressions lost the smiles and changed into goofy looks and scowls. And then, like one final, flash-powder burst, it was all over. Everyone grabbed the coats, grabbed the kids and flooded out into the night; the race was on to find cars, buckle car seats, and get out of the parking lot as quickly as possible.  That designated moment to capture was gone.

A few days later, I found myself trying to seize the moments of my son’s seventh birthday party. On a mildly wintry Saturday afternoon, he and twelve of his friends sported wildly in a gym for two hours. They didn't stop running, jumping, throwing, rolling, crying, yelling, and feeling the thrills of victory and the agonies of defeat-- the entire time. The gym morphed into a pinball machine with twelve balls bouncing around it. In the middle of it all, stood my sixty-six-year-old father. He had a small, orange plastic whistle tied with grey yarn around his neck. Unfortunately, the whistle sound didn't convey much authority; it sounded more like a chicken sneeze. The boys played like they were in a championship showdown while Dad tried to ref, blow the chicken sneezer, and make the tough calls. It was a sight. I clicked, clicked away with the camera. Dad blew his party-favor whistle, indicated first downs, called dead balls, and declared timeouts for tears and intense play debates. The boys, like pinballs (or roller derby participants), collided and zipped around him, and I tried to capture it all. When I reviewed the photos, I found that most of them were blurred because the shutter wasn't set for such action and speed. But, I managed to get a few of the game, the cupcake and Gatorade stained faces, and the gentle glance and smile of the ref. I wanted to keep those moments forever--for my son, for my dad, and for myself.

Beyond the music program and the birthday party photos, the washing machine and turkey images (see previous blog post) still lingered. And, well, I did it; I tweeted a picture of a washing machine to Shia LaBeouf’s Twitter page, and I photographed the turkeys in the glow of headlights. And, by doing so, I deduced that I may be experiencing some kind of mid-life crisis.

When considering the Twitter post, I thought, “Why not? Just do it. What the hell--it’s kind of funny.” But after I clicked “send” and the picture of the Maytag top-loader zipped off to be reviewed by Shia’s page police, I felt oddly guilty, like the act was offensive. I mean, sure, I didn't whip him or anything but isn't the weirdness of posting a picture of a washing machine somehow assaultive? I included the caption: “Because art is both purging and cleansing and sometimes random and sometimes not” and hoped Shia would understand. (Yes, insert sarcastic tone.) I thought that he might determine the washing machine a symbol of his artistic revolution. But, he hasn't replied to the Tweet, so who knows. I hope it wasn't too much (more sarcasm). We’ll see, maybe it will end up on the Today show or something.

The turkey shots, however, were slightly more satisfying. I think my old, “dumb” phone captured the turkey glow by Envoy lights quite well. The eye of the bird kind of reminds me of the eye of Peter Benchley’s beast or maybe some other leviathan. Okay, maybe that’s going too far, but the quote “it’s got eyes like a doll’s eyes” did come to mind. The good news is that, that particular bird has still got its head---he’s photogenic.  

As I think of all the pictures from puppy-boat dream and music program to Maytag and turkey-eye glow, I find myself pondering the fragility of life. Yeah, I ended up there. I suppose this dip into mortality negotiation corresponds with my recent birthday and all the events of late. It seems, that we all reach a point, depending on experience and age, when we really sense the vulnerability of it all. It’s not something of the future. It’s not something to be imagined. It, a kind of visceral acknowledgment, is actually felt in every cell. A veil is lifted and the heavy expectation of time passing and loss becomes painfully clear. Moments can’t be captured. They pass. Things end. We end. The snapshots are just little pseudo-sensory time machines that let us repeat a twinge of what actually was. So we wiggle and bend through the crowd, we frantically adjust the shutter lens, we post Maytags to Twitter, and we try to hold on. Maybe the trick is to hold onto the seconds rather than the “puppy-boat” moments—to hold onto the tug of the blanket, the little boy whine, the cold wood floor underfoot, the Strawberry Shortcake smell of the Pop tart, and the confounding frustration of the missing Lego. Perhaps the way to get beyond the fear or the desire to capture it all is to hold on to each second for just that second.

(Or, maybe we should all just post pictures of Christopher Walken’s treasure chest to Kim K’s Twitter page.)