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Man, I can't believe it's Monday
already. What did I do with the weekend? Squandered it on reading
whatever I wanted, hogging the phoneline for this internet connection,
sleeping late. Doing nothing. . . but I did safely and efficiently
deliver Dominic to O'Hare on Saturday morning and gather him
up again last night. . . and I did get those invitations ready
for the mail.
Speaking of which, the other day
we received an invitation to attend a super-bowl party hosted
by the guys at Mt. Carmel. It's posted on our board downstairs,
a bright yellow-brown creation on super-smooth paper. It really
catches your eye and sings out "Come to our wonderful party!"
And then there's our invitation - stupid old black on white -
Ahh - the nefarious comparisons never end. I suffer from Party
Invitation Shame Syndrome. There is no hope. But, speaking of
parties. . .
Take a look at that picture up there.
That's me hovering over the flame, circa 1961 or 1962. I remember
that shirt. This is one of those rich pictures you're lucky to
have. There's so much to say about it that I may not say a thing,
not the important thing at any rate. But. . .
Whoever took this photo (possibly
Dad) did a very right thing by not using the flash. Amazingly,
the low speed required for candlelight did not produce any obvious
blur (aside from Mom's hands). We are captured at The Still Point,
all entranced by fire. The brilliant candles are off-center.
My noggin seems dead-center, a placement emphasized by the circular
crease/halo (Discourse on Creasing comes below). The candles
do all the work. They light up not only me and Mom but that little
munchkin down in the left corner - Scott Annis, I believe. They
do not manage to shed much light on the opposite corner where
lurks my brother Chuck, fascinated by Camera not Cake. You may
not be able to see him, but he's there in the dark.
I am not alone in the center ring.
Shadow Me is a larger presence while I am off-center here. Then
there's Mirror Mom. I like the way my head meets the corner of
the mirror and casts its darker perpendicular rays back out.
Or is that darkness pouring in? Here's an extravagant interaction
of triangles, circles, squares, and lines. You couldn't have
designed it so well. The camera just found it. It had to be discovered,
forty years later?
I think the creasing suggests that
we liked this shot very much. We knew it had something. Somebody's
moist fingerprint invaded the emulsion. It is oddly creased;
I can't account for that circle. All of this wear suggests that
it's lucky to have survived. It became for a while a part of
our rough and tumble. Now it's here and full of character - sort
of like a person who has managed to hang around long enough.
Funny how things get overtaken by
Spirit. When Mom saw this at Christmas, she said, "You see
that Orange Crush bottle? I still have that very bottle over
in the kitchen cabinet. I put the angelfood cake pan on it to
cool." I just looked at her. "Well, there've been a
lot of Orange Crush bottles in the world, Mom." Nevermind.
It would be nice to think so, and that's enough. Everyone has
changed; we've all been done over by Time - but the Orange Crush
bottle leaps across four decades unscathed. Good for it.
The moral: decidedly materialistic:
save some of your old stuff. Don't throw it all away. We'll all
be gone soon enough.
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