A blog about photography & transformative art
Suburbia. It feels like a dream in which a towering mountain of wet wool buries my sorry soul deep within it. In that dream I poke my head out of the suffocating mass of animal fur. I am nearly decapitated by a black SUV as it rushes past me. Some crazed woman is taking her child to piano lessons...and she's running late. Welcome to my suburban postcard from hell.
Regular readers of this blog know of the Pyracantha Caper. For some time, someone had been decorating an agave plant along the old rail bed near our home with pyracantha berries. The berries were placed onto the thorny spikes of the agave in a somewhat festive manner. I decided to augment this clandestine activity with a flourish of my own berry decorations. It was a good way to spend that otherwise dull week between Christmas and the new year. I'd hoped others would participate in this secret, suburban art project. Alas, no one did.
I feel anticipation as I approach the pumps. Each day they are different. Astride a small dam that forms the lagoon, they adjust the water levels of the various channels and basins that make up our ambitious flood-control project. These homely contraptions are the unsung heroes our lowlands. For a town that was once known specifically for its floods, we haven't had a big flood in years.
"I wish I were in Italy right now," I thought. Then, suddenly, I became aware of my mental complaining. Sometimes the camera will do that to you. It wants to find something exotic. On this particular morning my macchina fotografica wanted an italic slant on things. All I could give it was a simple walk around the hood which is actually good practice for the mind's eye. If you can make images in suburbia you can make them anywhere.
Staring at the edge of the canal I look down into the morning light. Lately I've preferred looking at the sky's reflection than directly at the real thing itself. Sometimes the sky is too much for morning; too bright and too vast. Its reflection is nearer and more intimate—something into which I get lost.
I looked out my window late yesterday morning. High clouds. Normally I like to make photos early in the morning when the air is fresh and the sun is golden—when the world is my own. But high, wispy clouds mean magic in photography so I broke my own rules. I went out with my camera in the latest part of the morning.
I stand there with my big, nerdy camera and they look up at me—straight at me. Their glare goes right through the lens and then right through me. I shiver. It's my least favorite aspect about photography. I am probably the shyest, most self-conscious photographer in the world.
Old cars share a sadness. They speak in faded shades of worn patina. Old hopes reflect back to me in their marred paint. Long after fat ties and worn suites are rounded up into Goodwill bags, certain old cars hang around the neighborhood. I have written of them in past blogs.
In a scratchy dream I learn to fly. In effortless propulsion I glide through air and space. "Why haven't I tried this before?" I ask myself. Somehow I reach an oasis of palms. Lanky and swaying, they acknowledge my arrival. They are rooted, yet free—something I make note of as I land on my feet and look up.
Meetings—business meetings, that is—drive me crazy. Every one of them feels like slow death. I've never been to one that brings out the best in anyone, especially the best in me. I was a manager at 25, a vice president at 29, and a burnout at 40. Meetings, even today, at the age of 54, bring back the whole sordid tale.
