American Shrine

It has been a while since I wrote an installment regarding the snatches of life that I have experienced, but today I saw something that merits retelling.

I don't often go to McDonalds these days, partially for health reasons, and partially because I have so little money that I would normally rather save it and spend it on something of higher quality, but today I was short on time as well as cash and pulled in to their parking lot at the end of the lunch rush.

I am very tired these days and wanted a moment's peace, so I purchased a combo meal to eat in the restaurant. I was keeping to myself for the most part, with an occasional smile and nod to a passerby, when I noticed something strange.

At the table to my right was an elderly Chinese woman. She was wearing tidy, rust-colored pants, a beige cashmere sweater, a silk scarf tied around her neck in a tight knot, and comfortable shoes. In front of her on the table were three small paper cups with the ubiquitous golden arches logo placed at seeming random intervals around the sides. Besides the cups she had a newspaper written in Chinese script, and a framed image of an elderly Chinese man laughing. The image was partially blurred, having undoubtedly been taken with a slow shutter speed indoors, and the expression on his face seems to denote the kind of laugh that shakes a room. In some ways it was the perfect image of him, I would imagine. Not stationary, not "still", perhaps not captured at all. It was an image of emotion and presence rather than representation.

What caught my attention is that the woman, seated up at a raised table with her feet balancing precariously on the metal bar beneath the stool, was reading aloud from the paper. Reading, it seemed, to the portrait. I found her fascinating. She was simultaneously acknowledging the image, after all it was out on the table and she was reading to it, and not acknowledging it as I don't think I saw her look at it once. A moment later a younger woman, but still in her fifties, I would guess, came and lifted herself in to the seat opposite the elderly woman. There were still three small cups on the table. Three cups, two women, and a portrait.

It was then that I realized that she had, indeed, been reading to the portrait. Just as she had purchased a small drink for the portrait. It was an offering to a modern ancestor in the form of water in a waxed paper cup. I couldn't help but look at them. The strange little trio of colliding cultures from the most honored and revered traditions of one, to the most homogenized and marketed of the other.

When the woman at the counter microphone called for order 128, the younger of the two women shimmied out of the high stool and went to retrieve the food. To my great surprise she came back with one large fries and three sandwiches. All Premium Chicken sandwiches in their individual cardboard containers with bright green swaths of color and text indicating the contents. The younger woman placed all three on the table and handed the first to the older woman and picked up the second for herself.

After opening her own, the older woman reached across the table and picked up the third, carefully folded back the clamshell lid, and placed the open container in front of the portrait. It stayed there long after both of them had finished eating. I stayed until I realized I was becoming intrusive, and when I left, the shrine remained - Premium Chicken sandwich in a folded cardboard box, waxed paper cup of water, and blurry portrait that was both trapped in the moment and forever moving out of it.

Crazy Camera Lady

My husband made a comment tonight that I was turning into the "Crazy Camera Lady." Pshaw! Crazy Camera Lady, come on! How many cameras would I have to have to be crazy? I mean, every camera I have has a good reason to be had.

For instance, even though I don't use it anymore, the Minolta SRT101 has sentimental value, and I don't really know why I have the Minolta XE-7, so. . . I don't use the Nikon N65 anymore, that's true, but I do use both the the Nikon F100 and the FujiFilm S5 Pro, one for film 35mm, one for digital. I mean, that's just obvious. The CoolPix is just for fun and ease of carriage and use. So, really, that hardly counts. I need the control of the Mamiya 645 and it is a better fidelity negative than 35mm and easier to handhold than a 4x5, so I have to have it. And my grandfather's ArgoFlex is necessary, clearly. The Holga is a toy camera. Literally. And the two pinholes are really only useful as pinholes, if you know what I mean. Then you have the Toyo, Silver, and her uncle, the gifted 4x5 that KH used in his heyday. I use the Toyo all the time. I mean, really, I should have purchased one outright rather than renting one for so long, so not purchasing it was a poor decision. And you are just being ridiculous if you think that the camera in my phone or the camera in my computer count. They don't. I'm not that crazy.

For those of you that are counting, that's 15.

Um. Heh.

Bleeding.

I feel like I am bleeding. Not in a physical "call the doctor" way, but in a more emotional way. I think part of it is because I am almost 30. I feel like some elemental part of what I was supposed to do up until this point that hasn't yet been accomplished is seeping away. I imagine, also, that this is perception, but it feels somewhat tangible. Feels like bleeding.

I am going to be somewhat alone on my birthday and that is starting to make me lonely. I have friends in the MFA that are asking if I want a party or a "martini crawl" but I am not in a place where those things really appeal anymore. You know what I wanted? A magician. I kid you not. I want to feel like I am six years old again, and that involves me interacting with a magician.

I realize this is not only not possible, it is not practical. It won't happen. It shouldn't happen. I can't expect it to happen, but I want to feel young, not old. I want to be excited and actually spontaneously giggle. I don't want to feel "past my prime" as one friend unfortunately put it, though he immediately said "I didn't mean that like it sounded!!"

The exact sentence was in relation to why I had so many bruises, and he said "perhaps you are like a fruit that's past its prime."

Sigh.

My MFA Buddy

I have a friend in the MFA program that suggested that I start a blog about my MFA project that I can write about every day. I think it is a kind of awesome idea, but I don't want to start it here, because here I like to think I have maintained anonymity. Stop laughing. You may be able to figure out who I am if you read all of the blogs. Then again, you can probably find out if you read just the last year's worth. Or, truthfully, just search MFA on this blog and you can find out how many MFA 1st year students there are at Brooks that teach English. Crap. Well, so even if you know who I am, not everyone does. At any rate, I may start a blog on another page in another way, but I will link to it from this page. Just not back to this one from that one. Shhhhh.

Call Me

I just thought that I put my phone in the oven with my chicken and rice.

It's okay, though. I didn't.