Last night, they transported us into the middle of the jungle, to my late great-grandparents’ property; I would stay in their empty stick house for ten days. No phone, no laptop, no loved ones. We, everyone, was a stranger. I fell into the grass and began to relax.
Bless the opportunity to get to know someone without technological distraction. If need be, bring back the cigarettes, but please, don’t smoke. Keep the cigarette between your fingers, unlit. Option to hold baby carrot, and chew.
Yesterday, a twelve-year old daughter rushed to keep up with her father, who was carrying coffees to their car. There wasn’t no camera, but now there are words, and memory. The impression of her run-walk, that he doesn’t look back or slow down, is slow, and so, it haunts, because it reminds you of something you had witnessed that time forgot but now remembers.
When Kodak disposable cameras were popular, the deliberate process of filling each of the 24 blank shots with an image was slow celebration; the choice to print doubles or singles, the wait to develop, then that thick stack of glossy prints packaged and sealed with a sticker, was for and by you. You. It was a happy end, a deserved stop, or the destination. A meaningful errand. Your effort, your visions for it, in your hands.
It’s a slow celebration. A friend, a family member, a loved one, dictates where you look, which dictates where you walk. You follow and learn to ignore the pain that follows. You decide, one day, to point your lens at a friend, a family member, a loved one, and immortalize their discomfort, displeasure, and disdain as the light seizes them. Then, like the artist, you are.
Is The Message 