Tuesday In September
If you wait long enough, God will send you a sign. This morning, arriving at the camera shop to drop off two rolls of black and white, I noticed the front door had been kicked in. Not only was the glass scattered inside like crumbly pieces of shattered windshield, the frame was collapsed and broken as if it had been stepped on - what could have done that? - all this behind a locked metal link fence of the kind you find in front of stores that inhabit less than perfect neighborhoods. No one there when I arrived at nine so I returned just before noon to find the staff, the store still dark, workmen of some kind sweeping up glass.
A fire in the black and white lab over the weekend, the fire department kicking in the door. There was water and fire damage in the basement lab and water and smoke damage in the store at street level. Ah. Not good. Will the shop survive? I don't know, but I'm on my own now for black and white. I'll search out a custom lab in the area, I know they exist, but nothing as convenient as this one a hundred yards from the front door of my building. A message from God? Well, it's hard to believe She's watching from way up there in the Fairmont bar drinking Gin Rickies (God does not hang out in Oakland), but a Message none the less: "DO YOUR OWN FUCKING FILM!". I'll revise it to my own end, of course, and assume She's saying "find thee another lab!", soon.
Not good to muck with a message from God. Or Mother Nature. You remember "Go with the flow? Have you read the Old Testament?"
I know, I know. I'm going to buy the chemicals. Some things are clear even from here. I will not think twice once I've started, but I've fought it to the point God has had to torch my camera shop. Even I know when to throw in the towel. It does seem a bit extreme, however, a tad dramatic.
Yesterday was a grey mind numbing day, a day when you think in terms of ends and epitaphs, then a long night's sleep to awaken this morning feeling like a zombie (I could have used another two hours, it seems, long night or not.), going through the usual bath, dress, look around the apartment for anything missed before leaving, deciding not to take the backpack and a camera - no way I was going to shoot during the day with a head like this, although I guess I would have shot the damaged store, even though I'm not into shooting damaged stores - drive to work, work, leave early for a haircut across the street, then home. I am now home and it is four in the afternoon and I feel better than I did yesterday, because I'm writing. So much for adventure on a first Tuesday in September.
|
