Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Rotate Clockwise

I don't hold many memories of this place, yet. 

There was the day my camera arrived, or maybe a few days after that, when I finally got around to opening the box.  I'd wanted it, been eying it for so long that it hardly seemed possible that it was there in front of me. I sat down on my mattress, there on the floor in the center of my new house, and began to unpack the contents of that parcel, so full of possibility that I felt almost unqualified to open it.  There was a body, sleek and dark, just heavy enough to give weight to the hand, shaped to be held, not a switch or button out of place...and when I opened the cover to peer inside, when I glimpsed the mirror there, the guts and workings of that beautiful machine, it gave me such a thrill I lost my breath for a moment, while my heart skipped like a sun-kissed stone across open water, I must confess.  If ever I have known a love at first sight, I did then. 

Since then this magnificent creation has become my small and steadfast companion.  Despite my fears that I could not begin to know, much less master, its controls; that I would not be able to translate my vision into its language; that I might just suck at finding, seeing, pushing, sifting, and even learning; that this was nothing more than indulgence; that it was more than I needed or could use or even handle, what I have instead come to find is that my camera simply makes me very, very happy.  Minutes and hours pass easily through my lens (oh how dearly I do adore thee, VR zoom!), each click of the shutter splitting time like a meditation bell, my inner child playing the xylophone, an electric current snapping through the frayed wire that's hanging overhead.  I lost myself yesterday afternoon, blind, and then I lost myself seeing.  Only what's there. 

The images are mostly raw, yet, because I still have so much to learn.  I wield a tool that vastly exceeds my skill. This can lead to a dangerous situation in the case of motors or blades, or an embarrassing one when it comes to microphones or whip cream, but with my trusty light-box in hand things usually turn out okay, and what doesn't is easily forgotten.  I don't know what I'm doing half of the time, or most of it, and I keep forgetting to adjust the exposure compensation and change the speed, try the rear flash instead of the slow one (if I can stand the flash at all), reset everything again...I can barely focus.  Shutter, aperture, still a mystery.  Basically I'm a total idiot when it comes to this thing, but every now and then--maybe often, even-- something sort of miraculous happens, when what I see is captured, magically, and returned to me as the poem I could not speak, the canvas I could not paint. This I love.  That it happens sort of randomly now is a pleasure.  That I might one day know enough to bring something new to light, that is my hope. 

Oh, and have I mentioned how my kick-ass and totally worth it battery holds a charge forever...............? 

On another note, tonight the moon is full, in Taurus and Scorpio, a powerful combination.  My birthday's close at hand, and my energy is high as I turn into the next year of my life, the next season of my being.  A couple nights ago I came to the sudden realization that not only must I, but I do, love this body of mine, this earthly companion (so small and heavy and full of light), and moreover I will love it, this new and aging body of mine, and no longer will I hope to cast it off, as long as I am breathing.  In the temple of self-portraits I have entered a new hall, where my wrinkled skin tells stories about me while I sleep, dances wild and slow in circles round my half-shut eyes.  I miss the Miss I was, the girl I never did be, but there is strength and laughter in me yet.  And skirts, of lengths and widths and fullness and colors I've not yet worn, with room enough to spin. 

Go out and look at the moon tonight; She goes around and around, and it's not for nothing.

2 comments:

JB aka JayBee said...

This is perhaps the most beautiful blog post I have read, ever.

Thank you.

I am so jealous of your camera; She gets to spend so much time with you.

fremenine said...

My dear, that is so sweet.

Come, come, my home takes shape. We must be together while we can...

I have ping-pong, no opponent. ?