Hampl is not far from this mind. Hampl was there on my train ride to the city on Thursday and there with me as I walked across Manhattan to the office. And Hampl’s here with me today, early Saturday morning, as I sit in darkness, in silence, but for the tapping of keys, with birdsong easing through the open window bringing in the dawn.
Life is not a story, a settled version. It’s an unsorted heap of images we keep going through, the familiar snaps taken up and regarded, then tossed back until, unbidden, they rise again, images that float to the surface of the mind, rise, fall, drift—and return only to drift away again in shadow. Call them vignettes, these things we finger and drop again into their shoebox.
He shifted his legs as I took the empty seat across from him. Early 30’s. Two to three day beard. He smiled offering me “Good morning.” I’m settling in. How startling it is to be greeted with a ‘good morning’, a smile, a greeting on a morning commute.
She was on the right side of 50. Anxious. She had to go. I mean really Go. She paced in front of the toilet. It was occupied. She knocked on the door. She knocked again. She stepped back and stood in the vestibule, waiting. She lifted her right foot, and then her left, and quickly repeated the sequence. She then grabbed her mid section and grimaced. She walked back to the toilet and knocked on the door again.
I exit Grand Central Station. He’s standing just outside the doors. No cup in hand. No sign. No request for change or coffee. Clothes hang from his body, over sized and tattered. Sneakers are soiled. He looks at me. His eyes are full. He doesn’t break the stare. He uncomfortably shifts from one foot to the other.
I’m a few blocks from the office. Times Square is teeming with tourists who crowd sidewalks, lingering, milling in front of store fronts. A large neon sign that runs the entire length of the building flashes clips of breaking news. I catch fragments. Trump. Cohen. Russia. A cool breeze blows down Broadway. She’s wearing a hat with ear flaps and a pink coat. She can’t be more than three. Her mother is down on her knees on the sidewalk, kleenex in hand, wiping her little red nose, first one nostril and then the other. The girl’s arms hang down by her sides. She’s sporting a wide grin. Trust. Goodness. Innocence. Future. Hope.
This snapshot sticks, my thumb is on the advance key of the slide projector, click, click, click, click – with the same photo in black and white.
And here it floats, 3 days later. Rising to the surface, falling, drifting.
These things we finger and drop again.
And again, and again, and again.
Notes:
- Post inspiration: “Life is not a story, a settled version. It’s an unsorted heap of images we keep going through, the familiar snaps taken up and regarded, then tossed back until, unbidden, they rise again, images that float to the surface of the mind, rise, fall, drift—and return only to drift away again in shadow. They never quite die, and they never achieve form. They are the makings of a life, not of a narrative. Not art, but life trailing its poignant desire for art. Call them vignettes, these things we finger and drop again into their shoebox.” (By Patricia Hampl, The Art of the Wasted Day (Penguin Publishing Group. April 17, 2018)
- Photo: Jack Delano, Washing Eggs to be sold at Farmer’s Market (August 1940) (via Newthom)
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