About Suffering They Were Never Wrong

I shot this for a model I've worked with many times.  The image is a mistake.  I accidentally overexposed it but tried to get an image from it as an experiment.  When the model and her mother saw it, they wanted me to print an 8x10 so they could put it in her portfolio.  I say that I shot this "for" them because it is not the sort of thing I do, but I will shoot whatever they want me to as they've been generous in working with me.  I didn't think any agency would look at this as they usually want to see plain pictures of the model and are not interested in "artistry" of any kind.  To my surprise, they told me the agent liked it much.  The agency signed her and are now shopping her around.  What do I know about such things.  

I put it here not because I think it is a good picture, but because I was looking in some of the places I surf on slow mornings and saw a nice collection of Lillian Bassman's photographs here.  It reminded me of her work in a superficial way (not making any comparison, I swear).  

I am not up to a big post here.  Spent the weekend in the hospital with the malady I'd mentioned.  I won't report on that, but on this--the first step outside the hospital is a shock.  As bad as hospitals are, I got used to people taking care of me very quickly.  I was not prepared for my stay and did not have anything with me other than my phone.  I was put into an observation ward with six other beds.  It was loud and busy.  I had nothing to do but lie in the bed, think and listen.  Usually I can't stand noise, but somehow there it was comforting.  I slept and woke listening to one patient being brought in and asked the same questions I had been--have you been falling. . . diabetes. . . history of heart disease or cancer. . . .  Later, another.  I'd fall asleep and the nurse would wake me up to give me medicine or to take my "vitals."  On and on like this it went, but I had driven myself and was alone, so in some sense, I think, it was a substitute for a family or community.  I don't know.  But I didn't mind.  I even ate the hospital food without complaint.  The nurse the first night was wonderfully pleasant and beautiful.  Of course.  In the morning, she was gone without goodbye.  Ho!  And the next was equally attentive and pleasant.  They were all wonderful, checkin on you, asking if you need anything, giving you medicine and helping you sit up and responding to your calls for Vicodin promptly.  And so I lounged sleeping and waking and thinking without television or book or computer.  

"You must be bored," one said to me.  

"Not really," I said.  "I never get to do this."  

But there was a devil in the mix.  Don't need a doctor on the weekend.  We all know that.  From Thursday to Sunday, I saw talked to seven different doctors who asked me the same questions each time, each of them responding in different ways.  There seemed to be a thread of reason that bound six of the doctors' responses, that being I needed to be hospitalized and put on i.v. antibiotics.  But the seventh was different.  He didn't like me at all, I could tell.  I wondered what I had done to him on the outside.  Surely something, for there was a familiar look in his eye.  And on the verge of admission, he came in and said I was fine, that the drugs I had been taking were good ones, and that I could shove off for home.  I won't bore you (more) with the details of things, but something changed yet again.  As I was waiting to be discharged, I was hooked up to an i.v. and told I was being admitted.  

My last day in the hospital, the last doctor I saw, the one who discharged me, the only one I saw twice, was The Dick.  I was in good shape, he said, and sent me on my way with an armful of prescriptions.  

So. . . the first step outside the hospital was a shock.  Don't expect to leave the hospital cured, I guess.  I felt as bad as when I entered, worse, really, now that I was full of so many toxic substances.  My symptoms were still the same.  From the cold, dry ward, I entered the hot and humid outer world, chemical sweat beading instantly on my greasy face.  Finding the car, driving to the pharmacy, then to the grocery store for things I needed. . . it all seemed impossible.  I wanted to ring the button for a nurse.  And people outside the hospital seemed mean.  They would not care for me.  Dripping with sweat, all things seemed impossible.  

At home, the cat waited for me with tremendous neediness.  

"I'm not in the mood to take care of you now," I said. 

"Pourquoi pas?"  

"Nor to speak French."  

There was only my house and things to do.  And I, I felt, was not the man to do them.  I am much alone and often happy to be so, but in such times. . . one envies the other.  "Here's the price," I thought to myself.  The cat bumped against my leg.  

I have gone on about this far too long, much longer than I intended.  Other people's suffering is boring, and I have reneged on my promise to make mine more interesting than yours.  That, too, seems impossible.  

*     *     *     *     *

Sorry.  Wrong photo.  This is the one they liked.  But it doesn't remind me of Bassman.