Guilt and regret
I felt guilty leaving for a few hours today.
I’ll be alone with my kids for five days, so I took some time to let my brain consume other things. There is always a bit of a paralysis when I think about what I want to do. Mainly, it’s about maximizing my time and making myself feel satisfied with the decision I’ve made. As adults, we aren’t always able to simply “let go” of the rhythm we’ve built for ourselves. And it’s even more pronounced to leave that rhythm when unknowns start creeping into your head, like what I don’t make it in time to help with dinner or what if I get home still needing a few extra hours to really feel like myself again.
But at the core, I’m always thinking about fending off regret or some future state of hindsight. I’m sure some articles articulate plainly and simply that this is a form of anxiety manifesting. In some ways, I’m aware of it, but I also think it’s a uniquely conditioned state in our modern world because we have so many things at our grasp. I could have gone paddleboarding by myself, but that’s not my thing. I could have sat at a bar counter by myself, but I didn’t want to be buzzed at 2 pm. I could have gone shopping but didn’t want to spend money on things I don’t need.
Instead, I grabbed my medium format camera, the bulkier of the bunch, and stepped out into a very dense scene on the Seattle waterfront. As I walked around construction zones, tourists and strollers, feces, and other fun stuff, I started feeling more at ease, falling into whatever pulse was around me.
There was a fairly harsh sun and a smokey haze that is all too customary in the latter summer days of Seattle. For the last few years, we’ve had to grapple with British Columbian-born wildfire smoke that envelops what is usually the freshest air in the world. But today I sort of enjoyed it. The haze was manageable, and cast a mischievous light on my surroundings. If there’s one thing photographer’s love is light that is different, but not so inconsistent. Shadows retreated and then charged back, flatness around one corner led to heavy contrast in 30 seconds around the other. I started to think about how light has helped my guilt. Light doesn’t feel sorry for us photographers; it’s intentionally fleeting and all-consuming and then absent to keep us on our toes. I feel like I need to cherish more of those moments from myself in life. Sometimes I’m full of light, sometimes I’m flat. But it’s always intentional and real. At least that’s what a simple walk around Seattle’s tourist taught me today.
My son took this photo of me on a recent camping trip. What was meant to be three nights on a beautiful island with expectations of weather rivaling any paradise you can think of, we encountered two nights of heavy rain, cold wind, and insufficient planning and supplies. My wife joked I earned a Pacific Northwest badge of some kind and I did carry a fairly depleted sense of enthusiasm as soon as the reality of the weather forecast set in. For the most part, we made the most of it. Kids played. Kids laughed. We had good wine. We saw beautiful landscapes. There was a freshness in the air from the weather clearing out whatever mild pollution existed. But I used the opportunity to hand over a disposable black and white point and shoot to my middle child. He’s been the most enthusiastic about photography and is always curious about why I’m lugging cameras around all the time. While this won’t be a review of the disposable camera (it sucked), the images that came back showed an awesome grasp on composition. Images were mainly underexposed (not his fault) but his idea of a shot followed traditional “rule of thirds” or “golden circle” compositions. It reminded me that these guides aren’t frameworks from business school, but natural things that blossomed from the way we appreciate the world. They are intrinsic. It made me so happy. Now all I have to do is help nurture it for him, maybe the way no one ever really nurtured it for me.
Below, a portrait from my son of his dad.
A little bit of a different audio finality to this newsletter. I listened to a great interview with Will Ferrell and his best friend Harper Steele about how their friendship emerged, has been shaped, and how its gotten stronger.
Happy Sunday and thanks for reading.
Photography is a great way to leave behind the past and future to attend to the present. I like how you do it.
Did you explain to the kids the purpose of a phone booth? Did it blow their mind?