missing thousands of words
There are many things that are making writing hard for me these days, but one of them is not having a working camera. As you can see, when I'm blogging I think in pictures: first I see a moment I want to capture in a photo, and taking the picture I think of how I want to frame it in writing; then I use words to connect the different pictures together. Even when I just want to write some dumb thing about mowing the lawn, I really like to have an image to anchor my thoughts. With only my disgraceful phone camera available, that method of composition does not work.
So you miss, for example, the full details of how we deal with colder weather. Oh, how I wished this evening to be able to photograph Harvey's outfit this evening, chosen for cycling to the library in 40° weather: shorts, snow boots, an unzipped sweatshirt, and fingerless gloves. Super punk. I totally would have had some good things to write about that. Or, also on the clothing front, I could write about my disgusting work pants that I wear like all the time—but not without a picture of them.
You know, one thing that maybe doesn't need a photograph is the boys' obsession with the disposable plastic knives from the community dinner, how they must always have at least two as weapons, and how Harvey had his confiscated by a uniformed Air Force officer this evening. But now I'm too tired. Maybe another time.
comments
I love hearing about everyone, pictures or no. After we cooked our precious camera in the woodstove (after the previous one got stolen, we were always hiding the new camera if we went out... we learned our lesson), we decided to go without a camera until the kids were a bit bigger, and just use an ipod for pictures/video. I've found it quite liberating, because I would never use the camera (I'd leave it Eug, the one with the actual art photography degree), whereas now I just try to have our iPod on me. The photos are not art quality, certainly, but I'm still a little in awe of the fact that the tiny little camera is still much better than the $400 camera I bought in college.
The woodstove is a noble end for a camera! I just dropped mine one too many times, I think. An iPod does seem like a reasonable choice... even a regular phone would be fine (as opposed to the museum piece I carry around). We just got Zion's camera working again—Leah's old one, that we gave him since it isn't as good as her phone now and he wants to take pictures all the time—so I plan on just borrowing it off him from time to time.