by joshua heineman

HIS CAMERA, HER CAMERA, MY CAMERA

it was after bagels at the bagelry & emptied coffeecups that we found the little bakery w/an antique store half-hidden in the back. there were coats & clocks, old mirrors & teapots, & a dozen old prints of new york city. i was in that giddy phase that follows breakfast on a sunny sunday morning… i couldn’t imagine a nicer place to be. we ate coffeecake from the bakery front while sifting through the shelves.

i found this lovely old camera & brought it home w/me. when it was young & modern, the first world war was ending & e.schiele was a young artist dying of spanish influenza. i’m not even sure my family was in america yet. anyway. i tried to imagine all the lives that have been reflected, passed through & not collected, in this camera over the last 92 years. 

[ i’m learning that, in these lives, the end is not truly the end at all & beginnings are maybe not the new starts we thought they were. even so, i am happy to add my life to the ribbon stretching from then to here & on again. ]

YOU ARE WHO THEY THINK YOU ARE

matea keeps a large phaidon fashion book sitting on the coffeetable. in some ways it’s completely rad… especially the entries on designers from the 30s, 40s & 50s. but hidden in the back (in the “glossary of movements, genres & technical terms”) i found this gem:

GRUNGE*
grunge was born in seattle’s music scene at the end of the 1980s. youth developed a slacker lifestyle with a dependence on television and computers for entertainment. their boredom was reflected in a dishevelled, lazily thrown together look of army trousers, unkempt hair and army boots or plimsoles. grunge empathized with the horizontally-relaxed hippie attitude and was used by designers such as marc jacobs and calvin klein to market anti-fashion nonchalance as a fashion in itself.

* emphasis mine

i was laughing so hard. but! this also reminded me of a bothersome truth tied to existing in this world: you are who they think you are.

you are, of course, who you think you are, too. & you are who your friends think you are, to your friends. but you lead a hundred lives in the heads of everyone whose path intersects your own. everyday. & these lives are mostly out of your control. your motivations, fears, desires, thoughts & hopes are decided by strangers based on whatever impressions they take from you. selah.

ONE MAN FEASTS AT A TABLE FOR THREE

two teenagers laugh at a third. a woman asks for water. a child sings to her mother in spanish. these sounds are just moons.

everyone in the taqueria orbits one man at a round table. he wears a blue jacket so dirty even the stains are stained by other impurities. he has a faded hat that no longer advertises anything. his beard is oldgrowth.

there are three plastic bags on the table.

he reaches into one & pulls out a piece of pepperoni pizza. it is stiff. he smiles, sets it on his lap. his hand disappears into another bag & returns w/a donut. sprinkles. he flips the donut upside down, places it onto the pizza… twisting it slightly like a screw.

& still, the moons spin. a cellphone rings. three men debate jukebox selections. a baby cries from a stroller.

as i stand to leave, the man in the dirty clothes reaches into the last bag. he retrieves a fork wrapped carefully in a napkin, which he untangles… digs in.