old photos

P bought a photo scanner. She sent this one of me from 198?. It was taken by Kevin one day when P and I were visiting from Brooklyn and Robert took us to Chronkite Beach. I found the Carleton sweatshirt under a tree in the arboretum -- I think I was walking at night with Tom but I could be making that up. I wore it for years and years, until the sleeves disintegrated.

Anyway, seeing myself so young is startling -- it makes me aware of my current age for a moment or two. I am not 23! I am sure that when this photo was taken I believed I would find someone and someone would find me, perhaps by the time I was in my late 20s, which seemed like a long way into the future. I did find someone in my mid-20s, of course. But I lost him in my mid-30s, and I haven't found anyone else.

But you know what? I don't think it matters, really. Alone, I feel a lot of things more keenly -- fear, satisfaction, anticipation. I know that I am responsible for making (or not making) decisions. For making my life.This involves strength, and acknowledgment of weakness. It requires me to rely on neighbors and friends, and strangers, even, in a way I would not otherwise do. I am OK with it, at least for today.

Watching Deep Blue Sea last night I thought about Terence Davies making movies about a woman who loves someone she can't count on, someone from whom she is expecting too much. It is something you don't see very often in the movies, not since the golden age of melodrama. And it is difficult for me to see it now but worth the effort.

I watched the president's speech. It wasn't bad. I don't feel euphoric but I am not giving up hope.