i, like you, do not waft around feeling myself beautiful. sometimes, i'm dressed better and it is easier to think this. sometimes, i'm in a good mood, at peace with the world, it is easier to think this.
saturday at a poetry workshop/open mic, i was just feeling peaceful and content. alive. where i wanted to be. who i want to be. and a photographer whom i'd been chatting with as he set up the camera for the broadcast taping of the featured poets, his back to me most of our discussion as he taped down cords and fixed backdrops who had blown a, rivet is not the right word, the gold cording fasterners, used on clothes and tarps. hmm, can't think of the word. anyway, not important.
his job, this cameraman is to not only film all the fine poets who frequent the place, but he gets to sit with them one on one after their reading and ask all the questions he'd like of them.
they're not intimidating,he said. after he told me he is a poet.
when i've got a camera on them, they get very humble.
an old av trick, i guess.
your moral then, carry a camera?
yes,he said.
but i've found that most of the poets i've met, and cared to meet, have been most gracious. generous spirits. encouraging. something, perhaps about living with eyes wide open. a heart accessible. most poets, i think, watch everything. even if they don't appear to. we are not journalists, but scientists of observation and word combination. what a weird way to describe poetry. anyway, i'm listening to an awesome poet read, eyes closed so i'm not distracted.
when he finished, i watched him exit the room because i wanted to remember the details. all of them.
ming, the photographer, walks up to me at that point.
may i take a photo of your face?
i was quite surprised,
sure.i said.
i felt lovely that day, simply because these are my tribe and people. all of them. even the ones who don't really know what they're doing. even the ones who are so heady no one can really figure out what they're doing.
if i were to meet a poet in an ideal situation i would be half way up a flight of stairs. and so i was.
i started up the stairs to the harrison club, a gorgeous building in paterson, nj that houses the poetry center at passaic community college. i'm not versed in architecture so i can only stammer about what the place is like. grand staircase entry which splits and doubles around to the second level. busts all around. art collections on the walls. rich dark wood paneling everywhere. high ceilings. a lovely venue.
so i'm midway up the first flight of stairs and look back over my should to see the matriarch.
hello,i said.
hi doll.she replied.
the strapping young buck of a poet bounded up the stairs to where i was during our greeting and i turned around and said,
hello nick.
he then stretched out his hand and gave me a not too firm handshake, but not flaccid either. it was just right. up the stairs we went. wafty skirts, my long black leather jacket and drapy scarf. it was a cold day so i had on black cowboy boots my best friend gave me.
ming, sat not two feet across from me and took several pictures. i wasn't sure what to do. look at the camera. look over his shoulder, look away. so i just sat there and looked square into the camera. my face began quivering because i'm not used to that kind of pressure.
he said my face was lovely, so round.
i don't wear makeupi said.
yes, that is what attracted me. and your teeth. lovely.
i smiled my crooked smile, and he gave me his card. the poet photographer.
i don't know how the pictures will turn out. i'm pretty blemished. he closed in right on my face filling up the whole camera frame with it just below my chin, just at my hairline.
i've grown fond of the picture not of my face. portraits more of my hair than my big round head. so to have someone wanting to photograph my face was a curious feeling indeed. and i wasn't sure, later, why he asked at all. but it was an enjoyable experience i won't glut of all pleasure doubting myself.
it is a curious thing to feel unlovely. then to remember a moment feeling lovely.
today i'll clambor up and down the stairs to the laundry and remember a few moments this weekend where i was singled out. when i was, for an instant, photographed for better or worse from the front. blemised. imperfect. serene. crooked smile and all. we are all really beautiful disasters. some of us just make peace with that fact.
1 comment:
So it was :
Hello Nick?
Good
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