Boring Tales of a Boring Life

Originally Posted Saturday, April 27, 2013

My life is surely unexciting.  The best part to the week has been listening to my cousin from Ohio telling stories about the family and life.  She was visiting with my mother for a few days after staying with another cousin on the coast for a couple weeks.  That is the hillbilly vacation--couch surfing with the relatives.  She was leaving to go home the next day.  I had come over from the gym without having eaten since breakfast.  I thought to just stay a few moments and be on my way home to make some dinner.  But the stories rolled endlessly off her tongue.  She's a good-natured woman who has lived a common working class life of a hillbilly.  It is what I would have had to look forward to if my family had not moved away from there. 

"I got me a big ole garden.  Three acres.  I was growing pumpkins that I wanted to sell, but a groundhog got into them and ruined them all." 

You have to hear it, "ruined" being "rurned," etc. 

"When I got home and saw it, I just wanted to sit down and cry.  He'd taken a bite out of one and then moved on to the next one and the next one.  Just one bite.  I reckon he was looking for the best one." 

"You need to shoot him," I offered.

"Well, I got my rifle.  I'm a little shaky, so I laid my arm up on the porch railing and shot at him twice, but I shot over his head both times.  They call them "whistle pigs," you know.  They say if you whistle, they will sit up and look at you.  But I never hit him.  I got him, though.  I put some Golden Marlen in soda pop.  They love the sweetness.  Cats and dogs won't get into it, but the groundhogs love it.  I got me four groundhogs and two possums and a skunk.  They don't make it four feet from the bowl before they drop.  Hits 'em just like that." 

I stayed and stayed until I was too weak from hunger to listen any more.  I want to take my mother on a trip to visit her family so I can just write down everything they say. 

And that was the highlight of the week.  The yard guys killed my lawn and brought a machine that cuts up the dead grass.  They spent the morning raking it up and hauling it away.  In the afternoon, I met a sprinkler repairman at the house and watched him try to fix some valves and the electrical box and the back flow mechanism.  He didn't have the parts to fix any of them. 

Later, I ran into a woman I know.  She is nice, but I have no romantic interests in her.  I asked her what she was doing that night gingerly not wanting it to sound as if I were asking her out. 

"Oh, the usual. . . nothing." 

"You going to sit at home and watch t.v. and drink?"

"I'll probably read.  I try not to drink alone.  There is something about it." 

We talked about some of the good television series.  She is just starting "Mad Men."  I told her I felt better knowing that other people were sitting at home alone on a Friday night, too. 

Then I went for sushi on the veranda.  I had my film Leica camera with me and was going through the camera pack for the first time in a year trying to find what was in there.  I had the camera and lenses sitting on the table when a brand new waitress came up.  I was disappointed because she wasn't Asian. 

"Are you a photographer?"

"Well. . . apparently, or so it would seem.  Are you?"

"Oh, I have an expensive Nikon, but I just play around with it, mostly snapshots.  My girlfriend and I need some pictures for our website." 

"Oh.  No, I don't do that sort of thing.  I'm a street photographer.  Here. . . let me take your picture." 

"I've got to get back to work," she said heading for the door.

It was easier for Vivian Maier, I imagine, when not so many people had cameras and there was nothing like an internet.  Still, approaching strangers with a camera has its own risks and its peculiar rewards.  There is just an adrenaline rush in it. 

But the light was fading and my dinner was soon finished and as the air darkened, I walked into my door at home.  There was the cat.  And there was the emptiness of the night.  That, too, once had its own rewards, but lately I have not had the resources to enjoy them so. 

I slept fitfully and got up several times during the night.  I looked out the window and saw the shadows cast by a very bright moon.  Everything looked eerie.  I couldn't shake the nightscape when I lay back down. 

I will go out with my film camera today and try to take pictures in the old way.  The light is flattening out now and not sparkling as it did all winter and spring.  I'll need to make some trips.  I'll need to change my vision.