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. ]
