new/old

This has not been my best day. I enjoyed a peaceful morning listening to Bach, but as time went by I felt more agitated. Going outside to walk Mabel I did not want to see anyone, and luckily the streets were quiet, so many people away or inside doing Christmas morning. Later I took some help and went to sleep. The phone rang at some point and it was B calling, which cheered me up and then I got up. I wrapped gifts. Tomorrow I will go to PA to see family. The funny thing is that today I baked chocolate-chip cookies as if I were having a party. Some party. Party of one. I ate so many I feel a little ill now.

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One reason I like to take photographs like this is that a thing divorced from its context becomes something new; this nail in a piece of old deck-wood from the Vermont house is, in this photograph, unknowable as such. Here it is part of a composition, the roundness of the nail contrasting with the straight boards; the parallel lines of the boards are offset by the loosely parallel tracery of the woodgrain. And the color: bleached and aged, it resembles galvanized steel rather than what it was originally.



Since I am ignoring the fact that it is a holiday--with no celebration on my calendar--I will not say the requisite brief phrase.

N.B. -- I was invited to a friend's family party but in the last few days I felt increasingly uncomfortable at the thought of going. Why? Because I would be the only non-family member there and I don't want to feel like an orphan or somebody's charity project; everyone else would be couples, the married siblings of my friend and their various kids, his parents. I would be like a third wheel, and since I am not romantically attached to my friend, I would feel all the more estranged. How silly of me, you might say. Silly or not, these powerful feelings made me look forward to today with such anxiety that I had no choice but to decline the invitation. This in itself caused me a great deal of turmoil--guilt and fear of hurting my friend's feelings-- but it was the right thing to do. I feel calmer, if not calm, now.