day thirty

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My Grandfather’s camera.

I didn’t really post post every day of November for NaBloPoMo.  Some days I didn’t have anything at all to say, and other days I did have something but I was sleepy or busy.  Tonight, for instance, I have lots to say, but I fell asleep with the girls earlier, and now I’m up, barely, and mostly interested in going back to sleep.

I spent a big chunk of today in the hospital (I’m fine), and I’m kicking myself for not bringing my camera.  The hospital I go to is partly brand new, but the original parts are old and interesting.  Today I could have taken a photo of the thermometer on the wall in the women’s bathroom on the sixth floor in the old building: it was a shiny silver rectangle-shaped box, with a mid twentieth century mercury thermometer on the front, and open metal lacework on the sides.  I have a huge love for things like that.  What would you call it?  Urban art?  The windows in that bathroom are frosted and have fifty or sixty year old metal handles that have white spots of paint where they shouldn’t from the last time the bathroom was painted.  Even the sink was pretty. 

At one point, in the waiting room near the window six floors up, I was reading Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, and I was on the page near the very beginning (page 7) where she says, "But you hold an imaginary gun to your head and make yourself stay at the desk."  I saw that a heavenly beam of sunlight was coming through the beat-up blinds and one little slice of it was illuminating that sentence along with all the dust particles floating over it.  I sneezed and thought of M. Kennedy and this awesome thing she put together.   And, I really wished I’d brought my camera.

I have to go back in a month or so, and I swear that I’ll bring my camera.  Even if I get weird looks from people, I’ll take some pictures in that bathroom. 

How many great photographs do you miss because it’s embarrassing to whip out your camera and squat down on the sidewalk near a leaf or a gum wrapper?  Most of my favorite shots were taken with people looking at me and thinking, "What is she doing?"  I’m getting better at not caring, but even when I’m driving and taking pictures, I feel funny about it.

So, tomorrow it’ll be December and it may be that the internet takes a collective break and breath and bubblebath.  This month has been so nice, though.  It was like a big conversation, and I enjoyed hearing it. 

3 thoughts on “day thirty

  1. Mom101

    Congrats on thirty days, even if you don’t think all of them count.

    I love your perspective on photographs – so true. My sigOth often gives me a hard time about photographing a funny sign or an interesting person on the street and my response is always “tough.” And Bird By Bird…well, you have great taste, lady.

    Reply

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