Photos

I used to love taking pictures, but I don’t do it much anymore. It’s nice to have a stack of old photos that you haven’t seen for years, a juicy apple to feed memory. The problem with seeing snapshots too often is that the memories can become fixed and trapped in the picture; like you can’t remember anything else about the day. Curse of nostalgia. The other problem is the overabundance of bad-quality images. When someone takes a photo now, my first thought is that I hope they post it on effing Facebook, and how it’s kind of like evidence that I did something. Also, (as mom has observed) there is a whole genre now of self-portraiture taken at arm’s length, usually angled to make the eyes look bigger, expression in the face windblown, determined, flirtatious at best, more often just kewpie. I think everybody’s done it, but I feel so embarrassed for the person. Photos, recorded music, these things can be junk food for the mind. We should limit ourselves on the cheap and easy and make sure we observe and hear good things. Why should the mind be abused when we’re so careful about our bodies?

Episode

This morning on the train, there was this horrid gurgling sound and groaning like an insane person behind me. At first I thought don’t look, it’s rude to stare and so embarrassing to be insane. But then I thought maybe it’s someone dying, so I did look. The girl in the seat behind me, in front him, had eyes wide with confusion. His arms rigid, flesh beet-red, mucous streaming, definitely dying (well, maybe not right now but maybe so). I called 911 without thinking at all. It was a crowded trainful of students mostly who looked aghast and cowlike. Upset and inexperienced with the world. I asked someone to hit the button. The driver came while we waited for the meds. “Oh yeah, he’s a regular,” said the driver, jostling him rudely. Does this unconscious man regularly have grand mals on your watch? Some students remark that he will not wake up like that after a seizure, but what we all want to say is quit being such an asshole. Does this redefine our situation here? He is visibly poor. Burden on the system (like me). Does it mean we jostle his body with distaste like a piece of wet trash that landed somehow on our shoe? Then the clean, strong, helpful medics do the same thing. They lift him out into the frosty morning, snoozing and exhaling his still unclean mouth like an innocent baby. God if only it were that easy.