During the month our daughter and her family were in Eugene, grandson Edmund and I drove and strolled one morning to places I wanted to take him. We entered Windows, the bookstore where I work when needed, and Edmund marveled, "Grandmom, there are thousands of books!" There were also staircases for climbing, which he greatly enjoyed.
We visited Tim's TV-station workplace (more lofty staircases, yay!), and we made a stop to cross a train track via the walking bridge beside the Washington-Jefferson park beneath an overpass (wonderful -- bridges and cars and running full tilt to take it all in). I remembered taking Victoria and James over the same bridge when they were small, one on each hand. Edmund's trusting fingers nestled in mine as theirs once did.
We reached the top and looked out over buildings and tracks, sidewalks and streets, gratuitous graffiti and pigeon poop. Edmund piped, "We can see everything!"
Other times, as he and I walked to parks and so forth, Edmund in his five-year-old energy abundance would begin skipping. Naturally I would start to join him, and then the activity of skipping, once so truly natural, would make its presence felt as a difficult process to maintain. Somehow my legs are no longer springy that way. Edmund would redouble his fervor as I "skipped," and he would chant, "Let's skip forever!" I sure wish I could've, Edmund.
Work at Windows has continued twice a week since June. Being engaged there helped my heart let go of our dear ones after they returned to New Jersey. Of course the expanse of hearts is a stretchy phenomenon. Our kids still inhabit that space each moment.
One day I asked our store manager, Katrina, if I could photograph her and Wendell Berry (her energy-abundant German Shepard named for the author), and I made sure it was all right to include them on my blog.
Another day, on a slow afternoon, I asked if I could help make space on bookshelves for new acquisitions. Even with our large bookstore area in the basement this is a challenge, because our store's owner and his book-buying partner from Portland often acquire whole libraries (which is why I was hired in the first place, to help run the store while newly-acquired books are catalogued and shelved). It was fun the afternoon I "scrunched" books, as my other co-worker, Jennifer, puts it. Scooting those from the Judaica section together, thus eliminating spaces made by books pulled for orders, I helped empty a couple of shelving units. Later I moved the British History section up to shelves on the landing of one of the staircases Edmund had so enjoyed.
The floor in Windows, as you might notice from the picture, is a concrete slab. This building originally housed an Edsel car dealership, way, way back when. The whole place has character, nooks and crannies, a historical feel. One recent day I was taking pictures of books for customers who had emailed questions about items that interested them. As usual I brought out my camera--since I always carry mine with me, it was easiest to use. Afterward, I turned off my camera and went to stick it back in my purse resting up on a tall stool. It slipped through my fingers, bouncing once or twice on the hard floor. Immediately I grabbed and turned it back on, only to hear weird whirrings and beeps as my lens extended and wouldn't retract.
That was a sad day. Sentimentally speaking, this camera has been my companion for nearly six years. It's a Canon, a point-and-shoot but a good one--I had figured out how to do pretty much what I wanted when taking photos with it. Especially along our river and in the back yard James built. And even though I had dreamed of upgrading, of acquiring more bells and whistles, I was usually content with this gift I received from all of our parents that Christmas of 2012, when I needed something to get me out walking again, when I was between those mommy and grandma years, between friendship communities (having become Orthodox and not fitting in so well with either our old or new Christian fellowships), between ways of expressing myself and ways of supplementing Tim's income.
I carried my ailing digital buddy to the Shutterbug store, and they sent it on a journey to people who know cameras but who take many weeks to report their findings. I'd like to say I handled my bereavement gracefully, but such would not be true. I moaned about it to Tim, to church people over the weekend, and on Facebook. Yet a friend, reading my post there, offered to loan me her Canon, which is one of those expensive models with heft, one for an actual photographer but able to condescend to serve someone nescient like me. Needless to say, I took her up on this proposal and lost no time beginning to play with image possibilities.
What fuel and food this episode is for my thought life. Moments and leaves turn while I lag and ponder, while in our dim mornings prayer book pages are lit by the woodstove's fluttering flames. Assumptions that I'll skip forever give way to the chasing and scrunching of elements of that which I consider mine. I seek to make it work for me, only to observe it, amid wails of injustice, slipping through and away. And yet there is help, as always unlooked for, you could say uncalled for, due to my wretched ingratitude. Yet truly there, ever kind, advancing me another breathtaking perspective.
