Walking the Mall

Well I’ve finally fallen into the abyss, I’ve begun walking in the local mall... no dogs, no heat, no rain... no fun. Soon I’ll be nodding hello’s to other oldsters who walk the mall with me. The thing that strike me is how empty of business it is. Store after store, acre upon acre of failed business and no one to take up the slack.

I remember this mall from my childhood, remember riding there on my bike wide eyed at the man in the rocket suit and the carnival rides. My friend Roy who insisted that I was chicken for not riding with him, green and not with envy was he. Later I remember standing in line for Rolling Stones tickets in my teenage years. I remember the name change rolled out with great fan-fair when I was hired as a photographer documenting the affair. Now it’s showing its age as am I. The stores one by one have failed, its only a shadow of its former glory, one wonders how long they can afford the upkeep.

I feel a certain kinship with this mall, stores now standing almost empty as one by one my systems start that long slide into failure. In the grander scheme of things I’m a young sixty-three, I have my health for the most part, I have a job that I enjoy. But the same drive that told me in my mid-fifties to start looking and actually reading the signs that I wouldn’t be able to do the physical part of the job were showing. So now I’m in a better position that I was six years ago, although my business has failed with the new economy, I have some skills that I can use to my advantage. Unlike the mall that is just waiting for a buyer to tear it down and use the land to make stand alone businesses. I’m learning to transition into new more prosperous realms, I am developing new skills to keep active while not letting the old skill go fallow.

In this brave new world of ours where other sixty-something’s are dropping like flies, where even fifty-year olds are having a hard time coping I’m still working. Not at the money I was making, not at the level that I was used to, but I’m getting out there, meeting new people and doing my part to keep alive. I’m working with friends, marketing a product I am proud of for clients I’m proud to be associated with.

My vision for the future looks good, 20/20 or there about’s, and on a personal level my vision does seem to be as bad as first figured. Don’t mind telling you I was scared, but there’s reason for optimism. I keep seeing those little black spots (floaters), now I’m glad to say that sometime are birds flying high up. Sometime there just spot in my hardwood floors, sometime they turn out to have legs and are bugs! Going to keep eating those carrots while keeping busy, maybe they were right about masturbation, you will go blind, and fifty-three years later I seem to, least I didn’t get hairy palms! So all in all not a bad forecast! Now after ten years if we could only bring our troops home and give them a rest they so badly need!

P.S. I’m taking GenTeal eye drops, they’re a gel formula my eye doctor recommended. Very good drops.

Chaos Behind My Eyes

I’ve always been accused of having such a calm easy going demeanor, nothing could be further from the truth. People just can’t see life from my side of the eyes I look upon the world. True I project what I want them to see and feel while I try to figure out where we’re going photographically. But I am trying to get a feel for the magic of what is hopefully about to happen, giving that chemistry time and space to happen in. Whether in my tiny little apartment studio, or in a vacant house, or farm, or even some field somewhere magic works best when it is unrushed.

I’m often asked by a model what I’m shooting, and if it’s a head shot why are they are nude, that question usually come from the uniformed. I smile and say that I’m studying the way their bodies moves, but it’s so much more. It’s the angles I’m looking at, the way the light plays over the curves, and I’m giving them time to relax and get comfortable with me and themselves so that their bodies move naturally. I don’t usually see a lot of tension in them, after all they agreed to pose nude in the first place, but it takes time for that comfort to grow, and for them to become unaware of me or my camera. It take time for them to grow comfortable enough that they start talking about life, love and their body’s quirks. It take them time to grow comfortable we me, to trust me with their lives as well as their bodies.

My friend Dave has the right idea, getting to know each other for a day or two, go camping in the forest primeval, or just have them around for dinner and a fire, get to know each other as work-mates but as friend also. It pays to have an understanding wife or soul-mate, it helps to have a place way out in the middle of nowhere. But the rest of us have to do the best we can with what we have, and you can build that bond, but you can’t rush it. That bring us back to that chaos I was talking about, remember that.

So much of the chaos comes from knowing I have a lot to make happen in the time allotted me, plus I have to be right on with the technical stuff as well to get the results I want so that final print will turn out the way I want. It’s that terror, that absolute panic that I live to master, to get under control, that delicate dance I must do on the edge of a sword to get the results I want. I love real film, the unpredictably of the medium, any other way seems like cheating to me. I love the terror of it quite the way I love getting to know my models, to tell them they have a nice little tush when really, I mean it.



Dave

Not Much

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Exercises

After my formal therapy was over I was at a loss for what exercises I could do. For the past eighteen months I had a set routine that I executed every other day, now I was unsure what to do. I really felt a type of rejection and a emptiness in my soul and in my life. I had a nice graduation from therapy and a even nicer certificate to commemorate my having survived hours of every know torture to humans, some they had to work at thinking up. I decided that since I was going off to visit my friend in the northeast I’d let myself rest and catchup on myself. After all that therapy I needed the time to think and get organize for my trip. I had a full list of exercises I could and was supposed to do but I couldn’t get interested in them for some reason, they just didn’t feel right.

By the time I left I was ready for a change of scenery and a change to my lifestyle too; I was ready for some togetherness. We started by taking long drives in the country to acquaint myself with the territory, north and south, east and west; where I was in relation to where I was now living. Long lovely drives into the countryside seeing places I never been before but would see again. I was so happy to be away from the heat of Texas and away from therapy and my doctors and the routine of my life. Letting my friend show me her part of the world, the little wonders she’d know for a lifetime and could now share them with me, the little nooks and crannies of her hometown and beyond. But my aliments followed me and tortured me just the same.

Just walking up the stairs exacerbated the pain in my hip, my buttock to be precise. I went for therapeutic massage and that did relieve my pain but it was climbing the two flight of stairs each day that really helped. I started helping my friend around her garden at first, nothing major just emptying each pail as she filled them with weeds and cuttings. Then we got to mulching dragging each bag out of the car and back to they were needed. Little by little I was getting more in toned so then I began taking longer walks. By the time fall came I was ready to try raking, just yards at a time then sit and rest, then rake a bit and rest again, I only finished the side yard but I felt like I accomplished something. I so very slowly was getting stronger and more toned, I was walking better and longer. Little by little each household chore that I did built up my strength. Balance continued to be an issue over uneven territory but a walking stick helped. Now I was learning a new routine to my day, a routine that I could follow when I returned home and for the rest of my life really. I could feel myself getting better and it was long after the eighteen months that my doctor had warn me against.
Walking at home presented a problem at first, too many loose dogs in the neighborhood. Too much stress for me to cope with on top of an already stressed system, so I stopped. At least in the neighborhood, I started walking in the park where there weren’t any dogs. The I started taking bags along on my walks and started picking up trash. Don’t laugh it was excellent exercise bending and walking, I’d do three bags each time I walk and it cleaned up the park too. I started cleaning up my apartment too, dusting the floors and washing them. It like to kill me at first but it kept me in shape and worked my muscle too. I even learned to work my arm in cleaning the mirrors in the bathroom and cleaning the tub. Worked every muscle in my body little by little..., and I never had to pay a gym either or a cleaning lady for that matter.

I’m sharing some tips I learned the hard way, never but never give up. Keep inventing ways to work out that you can learn at your own pace that mean something valuable in your life. Instead of learning to type with two fingers try to type as always, so it’s not easy, so what. Learn to push yourself to do things to try to get back to where you were before your stroke or head injury. I feel that my stroke was a landslide in my brain, all the pathways I knew over a lifetime were blocked. It wasn’t my hand or leg that was injured it was my brain. I had to relearn all those pathways I knew so well. Even if you can’t make the connection I feel the road to recovery begins with the will to survive. Each step to normalcy, each little step that you can accomplish leads to bigger steps and those steps will lead you somewhere you need to be.

B-Roll

Next week or two I’m supposed to do the B-roll of my testimonial, my fifteen minutes of fame is still two months away but I want to be ready. So I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to say and why. After I had my stroke I couldn’t think, things just came to me with no preconceive notions. By the time I was able to take my cooking class I got angry about it but didn’t quite know why. I just knew that my way out was though my strength and not by learning to be handicapped. I supposed that I knew instinctively that my muscles still worked, my hand, arm and leg weren’t damage the control for them wasn’t working correctly.

I always maintained that I had a landslide in my brain, as in any landslide the mountain that was me had collapsed and the pathway to “me” were blocked. I had to find a way to reestablish those connections again to make myself move as I used to. I needed to find a new path to me and to make that path(s) as smooth as possible; I was a child again learning to tie my shoes. The doctors weren’t much help either, the doctor is like a weather forecaster, he could tell me from his experience with others what my chances were but he couldn’t be sure one hundred percent. Nobody would know for sure until I did or did not recover. I had a lot to lose and I wasn’t prepared for that, I didn’t know any better so I just figured that I’d recover. Make no mistake it wasn’t easy or painless but it was either recover or live in a nursing home for the rest of my life. I chose recovery and I guess my stubbornness came to my rescue. I can be an obstinate son of a bitch, I want to do things the right way, my way.

So that’s what I did, I was more than willing to have help and guidance in my quest for me. But the more that I worked to get my strength back the more I knew I was on the right track for me. There were milestones along the way, markers for the progress that I was making. As each slid past I’d make up a new milestone, one’s that my therapist had to invent for me. I was a challenge for them, I forced them to think up new ways to help me and we both took pride in my progress along the way, my way back to me. Even as my progress took me past the eighteen month barrier that they had told me about I could see progress. I didn’t realize it at the time, several month would pass before I realize that I was still progressing. After almost two years and I started back to reading, my joy and pleasure was back and even my laugh was getting better but not the way I remember it. I still can’t sing, those who know me best say I never could but who know, I am hopeful.

And that’s what one desperately need hope, for the future and for the past. To get back to the old/real you. A you that you remember and are comfortable with, a you that fits your memories of you. A you you can be proud of, that you can say you made this happen. OK, so you had a stroke, a car accident, what ever it was that gave you the brain injury, you and you alone made it better, made it back to the old you. Never give up, work until it hurts and work some more. You are unique, you are the only you on the planet, there are no substitutes, know this and live life to it’s fullest. Did I mention never give up?

Terror

After living my life for the past three years in terror of dying any moment I’ve reach a certain peace. I’m able to read about my stroke and my medications. I don’t know whether it’s a certain fatalism or trust that I’m doing the right things. I’m unsure if I’ve decided to be positive or if I’m resigned to my fate; I don’t really care at this point I’m happy to have survived. When I had my stroke living was the number one priority besides getting to a better point in life. It also dawned on me exactly how hard it is to kill a human being. I had to concentrate on getting into a much different fame of mind as far as my health went. That I needed to get back my strength was obvious but my mental state was just as precarious. I knew that getting back to where I could think clearly was going to take at a minimum three to four years. After that I’d be as healed as I was likely to get given my age and former lifestyle.

I’ve started by taking a good look at my medications and what they do for me and to me. I realize that I’m taking some heavy duty stuff with lot of consequences. They affect everything from the growth of my nails, to my balance and my libido. Everything is clouded by these medications and the frequency with which I take them. Morning, evening and bedtime are a ritual of pills including one which helps me to sleep. One is for anxiety which was known to me but from which I never suffer too badly or at least I had my mechanisms to cope. Did I mention that booze is not longer among the mechanism I can employ. Probably for the best but the jury is still out. If I should contract a major illness all bets are off but for now I’ll be good. I am trying to cope with the medications, the limits on my thinking and on my abilities. It’s time to develop new strategy’s to cope with changes in my life and times.

I feel that I am now getting to the point in my recovery where I can make informed decisions in life. No I’m not able to think as clearly or as fast as I once took for granted. Gone is any desire to return to the competitive work that I once knew. Gone too is any ability to keep up with the punishing lifestyle of a commercial photographer. So obviously some changes in strategy are in order. I have to decided what the values are in my life, what’s important as I go forward. Frankly how will I be able to survive in this new world I find myself in. I’ve got to prioritize my desires and my realities and assign a real value to each of them. No longer do the old values have the meaning they once held for me and my future. I have been trying a new endeavors that have long term possibility along with my photography but it’s the short term I’m worried about. That worry seem to be a common denominator in today’s world and will be for some time to come. But we can’t be held back by our fears of the world and what it may bring. After all I could step off a curb and be hit by a truck tomorrow. Then where would all my worry have gotten me.

Writing

I’m really pleased with the way my handwriting has come along. From an undecipherable scrawl to something almost passable. My arm has gone from absolutely flaccid and lifeless by my side to a useful appendage at last. But the metamorphous didn’t come easy or painlessly. Through endless exercise to just using it, I worked until I’m getting some good return and I can type again at long last, with dropped letter or added but I have learn to type again.
I had to learn to reprogram my mind first and then to rework the pathways in my brain. That’s where all the damage was done in the first’s place. There was nothing physically wrong with my hand, arm or leg; it was all in my mind as they say. But the longer it hung at my side the more useless it was becoming, the more atrophied it became from un-use. Use it or lose it as the old saw goes, I had lost the use of it and now I had to learn use it again or the loss was permanent. So I started from scratch and learned again how to move my arm, hand and leg.

I remember being so proud and getting some confidence back when I raised my hand up to my face early on. I couldn’t keep it there and it certainly took for ever to raise it but the point was I did it. I proved to myself that I could do it and with just a little will power I would learn to walk again too. But the process seemed endless and at time unrewarding. Keeping my spirits high was a prime goal of mine. That’s easier said that done the reality of my paralysis was at times over whelming. Though it got easier to do the exercises I didn’t feel there was a choice left to me that didn’t leave me worse off than I was. I was religious about my exercises and did them everyday. On my days off I tried to cook as normal, wash the car (only once was enough) and get back to showering as normal. It’s easy to forget how to do something that’s as normal as breathing. Normal as closing your eyes and lathering your head or washing your legs.
Balance was the challenge for me, how to balanced and moved at the same time. How to come to a full stop and write a check as I went through the checkout line. One day I felt myself going over and I couldn’t feel anything to keep me from falling. Now this is going to be embarrassing as I tipped further and further. At the last possible moment I found something to grab and I stayed upright thankfully but it was mighty close. I was all too aware that reaching out to ease my fall could cause a broken bone or worst if I hit my head. I lived in terror of some little kid bumping into me as children are want to do through no fault of their own or mine. The result would be the same for me though.
Then as I slowly recovered I started trying to write checks for the things I had purchased . I always made out the check at home and filled in the amounts only at the store. I learned a new appreciation for older people who are under tremendous pressure to do things faster because people are waiting. I also became aware of the process of writing the check, the ways you have to balance your body to physically write the check. I’ve found myself gripping with my toes for balance and stability to be able to perform the act of writing. It’s very complicated process writing and standing at the same time. And mine you I’m talking about printing not the smooth style of writing that I was used to.
But as I say I’m pretty pleased with the way I’m printing these days. I can look back at my check registry and notice the improvements. Through my blood-pressure log I can chart my progress day by day, week by week as the months turn into the years of my recovery that I’ve conquered.

As I said my stroke was Ischemic and though it could have been worse it was bad enough. As I started to get better I tried to get used to the swing of the new realities of my life. I’ve been an event photographer for most of my adult life capturing ex-Presidents, Secretary’s of State and of course Congressmen and Mayors. There was a fund-raiser for the Mayor that I was donating my time and talents to. I expected the ususal event except this one was at a private home and I though it would give me a chance to experiment and see how my body reacted to the stresses and strains. This was about two months into my recovery and I was anxious to prove to myself that I could do what I always had done and to show myself I could rise to the occasion. I was barley off my cane at the time and still weak as could be and I figured I was good for an hour then I’d slip out and return home and rest. Well it was even harder than I figured and the event wasn’t at all what I had envisioned but I was stuck. I should have know better the moment I arrived that I was in over my head and just quietly turn back and gone home. No one was there from the association I belonged to who could help me I was on my own. It was a much bigger deal than I had figured, about 200 well heeled supporter were there including many that I knew. There was the meet and greet, handshake from well wisher who wanted to be seen and contribute, then of course the speeches. I sat and rested when I could but I needed to be on my feet much longer than I figured and when I needed to reload that was a pain I hadn’t counted on. I need to squat down to get at my bag to get the film, luckily I had put my bag under the piano so I had something solid to lift myself back up. Then I had 36 exposures to get though. I was really shaky on my pins going back down the steps and knew beyond a doubt that I wasn’t really ready for my life yet but in time.