This is as near as I can get to coming home, at least an online home. All the responses from all of you have been wonderful, warm and more than I feel I deserve really. All of you still there from before, and now some surprising, wlecome new arrivals from the World of Photography, better known as woophy. Sejam bem-vindos, Laura, Gi e Miguel! This is where you can find me, because I just can’t seem to write personal mails anymore, as you have surely noticed.
I had already become pretty withdrawn, even insular, this year before the discovery at the end of July of my Triple A (I like this name; at the precise same time that as the term becomes extinct as a credit rating for anyone except J.K. Rowling, I acquire it as a life-threatening condition….Lol!....gallows humour!!).
One can only take so much loss and imprisonment without compensations.
Since then, I have fallen into a process of removing myself even further from anywhere that I felt I didn’t belong anymore and anybody who I felt that I increasingly couldn’t respond to like previously. I didn’t do that to hurt anyone. It is just a consequence of a dire situation grown even more dire.
However, this feels like home. It IS different here. A blog allows space and freedoms. A home for words, emotions, thoughts, images, photos, and the door is always open for trusted visitors – who are always welcome. If anyone arrives who isn’t welcome, then it’s easy – they are simply barred from entry! “Very nice, 5!!” doesn’t exist here.
I have almost entirely lost photography now; I hope and wish that is temporary. Until 2 years ago, I lived photography and through photography almost every day. Its loss was inevitable, but nonetheless a cause of more pain and grief for me. Among the consequences of the loss is that (1) I started to hate to see either my own photos, because they are all from a lost past time and life; (2) it has become unbearable to see the fruits of hundreds of other people who live lives that enable them to continue shooting photos day after day, simply because they have something that allows it, that I would call ‘normality’, although I know it’s not the right word. So many other people besides me have profound difficulties to deal with. Photography has the power to absorb us and help us escape all the bad for a while. I know all about that. But when you have nothing to see, nothing to observe, no beauty of any kind, only ugliness, ignorance, dirt, chaos and mundanity, then you (or I at least) can be stripped of your urge to look, and to point a camera at what is in front of you. [Actually, I shot these pics below last Saturday, not a usual day here in VF Xira. Favourite is the autumn's first returning marine cormorant]
Anyway, to return to the main point of this bulletin: I spoke with my specialist yesterday, after some weeks of silent reflection and unhappy resignation; I apologised to him, but asked him to accept that I couldn’t go into explanations, but doubted that he has ever had, or will ever have another patient like me. He accepted.
I can’t go on being selfish; there are others suffering much greater stress over this on my behalf, and that is not right, or fair. I can’t risk others’ health and lives like I have risked my own. I concede that I owe it to try, even if it does not thrill me one milligram.
In view of my commitments this week and his next week, we have agreed that I will go into hospital on Wednesday 22 October and be operated on the next day. Provisionally, because the Triple A has clearly grown in the past few weeks. I am now feeling “twinges” and strange alien sensations, which is all part of it, if you are fortunate enough to have any symptoms. So, naturally, I am more afraid now than before of something bad happening between now and 2 weeks from now.
Today has been a bad day. I haven’t felt well at all since I woke up, but can’t identify it, other than a bit dizzy, an occasional rolling sensation in my heart, which has been there intermittently for 2 months, and weak and tired. So nothing got done, until I wrote this at 6.30 pm!
I am gratified if I have managed to do anybody any good. As for that word “failure”, believe me, I know why I use it and I will not be deterred. You, on the other hand, will just have to wait until it is coaxed out of its comfort zone. In fact, I see that much of what I wrote above, about my feelings on this impending operation, can only have any chance of being understood by anybody else if I succeed in writing the “Born Running” saga.
Gracias a la vida, eh?
3 comments:
So strange (or is it?), I too have an appointment on the 22nd (at 11.45) for me only a yearly check up re blood pressure and other trivial stuff. Be assured my thoughts will be with you. My words may not be as eloquent as others but you know that I have a love for you 'bigger than the sky'; from me no sentimental paltitudes or long discourses, just...pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again (the words of another blue-eyed man).
As for photography!...
"This is the strongest photograph I have ever taken.
I am sure about that.
If it were not, then why would it have caused me so much emotional reaction? Why does it choke the breath in my throat? Why do I see it in my mind endlessly and do not even need to look at it anymore, as it is always with me – every single disgusting detail?
I implore you/je t’implore/por favor, leave a comment/écris un commentaire/deixe um comentário/dejame tus pensamentos!
This photo, taken on December 8th 2005, has haunted me since I first saw it on the computer screen, which was manifestly different to what my eyes saw when I pressed down on the camera’s shutter.
I have read in various places recently viewers’ appreciation of Bob, ex-Barcelona DP and one of his trademark photographic techniques – the shot from the ground looking up.
Well, this photo is a variant on that technique. It is invaluable when the situation calls for maximum tact and discretion. My camera stays semi-concealed, in my hand, down by my side as low as thigh-level. People do not generally expect to be photographed from there; their mind tells them that photos are taken from the face, from a box in front of the eyes.
I turn a corner, I see a worn, dishevelled man in a wheel-chair, his dog on his lap, his ‘Portugal’ cap open in his hand, waiting for coins, I see the look of resignation, almost despair, in his eyes. I feel obliged to shoot, without stopping, without knowing if there will be any record of this sight.
When I see the product of that click 3 hours later, I am stunned.
18 months of seeing the results of this technique has taught me that these photos speak – sometimes scream, like here – of a very different reality. Subjectively, I often see them as a deeper reality, a truer reality, a more real reality. Things the eyes do not see, particularly if they don’t want to see. A 1000th of a second passes inconceivably fast, yet it can last for eternity.
After all, what is reality? And what is the point of “photo”? “Camera”?
What my eyes could not possibly have taken in is frozen forever: to the left, one man hurrying by; far more chilling, the poster in the window of one of Portugal’s major banks behind the beggar. He had positioned himself on this corner of Rossio Square, probably because it is such a good strategic place on such a day.
I am certain he had no idea of the poster behind him. For those of you who do not know Portuguese, I will translate: “How Do You Want to Live Tomorrow?”
Like me? Like us? Like them? Like him?
I was right to take this photo.
I am right to publish it.
You are welcome to disagree………."
May reality come up and smack you in the face again soon.
Love, hugs, whatever bings you back 'home' to us,
Rxxx
p.s. no mention of Bush & Blair in the present political module as we are only studying up to Hitler! Though their names often come up during open discussion ;o)
'I spoke with my specialist yesterday, after some weeks of silent reflection and unhappy resignation; I apologised to him, but asked him to accept that I couldn’t go into explanations, but doubted that he has ever had, or will ever have another patient like me. He accepted.'
Enough said Stewart, I like it, this brings a big smile to my face, it is you, and this is home for now. Sometimes we just have to look away, for our own sakes,sometimes its an act of love for our own true self that recognises just now this is too much for me.
Focus my friend on what is truly important just now and that is your precious health and hopeful restoration of all that brings you deep joy.
Im sending parcels again and I could fill one for you it would contain all the strenght, courage and hope you need to reach the other side of this dire situation.
My thoughts and love are with you xxxxxx Auds
As I went down to fetch my grandson at school I couldn't help thinking about life and how abnormal it is - considering normal what is logical, obvious and common - to know someone better through Internet than just through meeting him/her every day for professional reasons.
As a teacher I met dozens of "mates" for years, talked to them at the "sala de professores", tried to establish some kind of warmer intimacy, but was not so keen on sharing my deeper feelings as I do with friends online.
I find myself worrying and suffering online friends' pains and I consider this as absolutely normal, logical and I might say common.
Woophy and the love for photography has made me meet some wonderful people, who live in the same country as I do, but whom I'd never get to know, was it not for the miracle called the Net.
Your photo of the beggar at the bus-stop has come to my mind again and again and today I noticed I looked at each bus-stop on my way to the school, wondering if I wasn't going to see him again.
Reality and virtuality are now so close!
These are my reflections at the end of the day, dear Icarus....
Keep struggling.
Love
Gi
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