All It Takes Is Time

All it takes is time to do what you want and suddenly life seems worth living again.  I don't know how people who don't work ever become bored.  There is not enough time in the day to get bored.  Mornings are so sweet and beautiful and short, and with a glass of wine, afternoons are for napping.  Then, once the sun dips below two o'clock, there is the beautiful light of afternoon and early evening, and there is the dark intimacies of evening.  There are walks to take or yoga studios and gyms to visit.    There is coffee to drink and meals to prepare and no end of things to read and music to hear.

And then there are the creative arts.

All within a mile or two of home.

I took some cameras out yesterday.  Ili and I went to the big city downtown to stretch our legs after a day of lying around with colds.  Big city downtown is much edgier than my own little hamlet and only a few minutes away.  And it seems to be popping.

It is difficult if not impossible to take pictures of other people when you are with someone.  The street takes all your energy and attention and you are not with the person with whom you walk.  Even more troubling, though, is that you never know how people will react to you.  If you are good and in a groove and if you are living by your morals, everything is beautiful.

"If you want to go take pictures alone, I can get a beer and sit at a sidewalk table."

But I wasn't confident that I would even use my camera.  I had the Leica M7, the beautiful little film camera that people always ooo and ahh over.

"No, let's just walk."

The crowd was exciting, mixed in age and ethnicity and styles.  It didn't seem like a place I'd been to my whole life.  No, the people were new.  It was a new town, and I liked it.

Two girls with little dogs on leashes came toward me.  I asked if I could take their picture.  Sure, they said.  And then a couple.  It seemed easy, but I was unsure about how much fun Ili was having.  I turned around to see.  She was off in the distance a bit looking elsewhere.  It is no fun to watch someone approach strangers with a camera.  It is probably a little weird and irritating, I think.  I grabbed the digital camera and started shooting from the hip instead, walking with Ili side by side.  Still my attention lay elsewhere.

We walked through the crowd for about an hour.  There are images in my camera that I won't see for days, silver particles that have been altered by sunlight.  The rolls of film sting my imagination.

Last night, I couldn't sleep.  I have the bug again.  I tossed and turned thinking through images I might make.  I have ideas of how to do them.

All it takes is time, beautiful days that drift away hour by hour, full of meals and drinks and making things.

But tomorrow. . . .