Photographs: April 2010 Archives

I've been a M*A*S*H* watcher for as long as I can remember. So long that I am pretty sure I've really seen every episode they ever made, most of them repeatedly.

There was a sense the whole time, especially toward the end, that everyone was holding their collective breaths till peacetime, and that when it came, something special was going to happen with Hawkeye. What it was, no one knew, least of all Hawkeye. But I never quite believed him when he claimed he would simply exult, party, speed away in gleeful, unencumbered relief.

I felt that he'd never be able to get away from what those years had done to him, and that he'd feel like he was missing a limb to be parted from those friends, those comrades in his brutal, incessant fight against death.

By the time the end came, I was proven righter than I really would have liked.

He'd broken down and was in an asylum trying to collect enough pieces of himself to be put back into his M*A*S*H* unit. He was frail, something he'd never shown evidence of before, even in those moments where he'd show some pain.

He did make it out, of the asylum, and then out of Korea, but we weren't sure at all how he was going to be, afterward. And I suppose that is only right. What we really wanted to see, which was never (of course) going to happen, was him and BJ flying away together, brothers. Because we knew that even in his Maine paradise Hawkeye was going to feel like he'd lost his twin.

I bring this up because I recently found myself making a large leap towards something I've always wanted to do. Not just something, the thing. And I find that, like Hawkeye, I'm not able to simply exult, party, and speed toward it in gleeful unencumbered relief.

Too much has gone before, perhaps. It's been too long a battle, and I am not certain if I still possess the ability to believe in it, to take it in. I'm damn well going to try, because I do believe (or 85% of my self does) that I deserve to have it, to do and be what and who I want to be.

But the battlescars are not insubstantial, and they are not pretty.

I have no idea what to say, other than that I have an amazing opportunity, for which I must write a proposal, and I am having the worst time of it.

I think it's because it's something I want so badly, and as some of you know, I am sorely unaccustomed to getting what I want.

It's crucial for me to believe that I deserve it, and I'm getting better at that, but the difficulty I've been having writing this thing suggests that there's still work to be done on that score.

I am not sure what to do to break the ice. It's like a scrim in my brain, between me, where I currently am in life, and this thing that I've wanted all my life.

I tried taking a day off and going someplace pretty.

I tried drinking a beer (or three).

I tried getting outta the house and riding for a bit.

I tried various forms of play and socializing.

I tried downtime alone.

I tried parking myself at the altar of the laptop and sacrificing sheepguts.

I tried overeating, two days in a row (ugh).

I tried knitting.

I tried plowing through it in extra-rough, downright corrugated draft form.

Nope. Nothing's working. Nothing's working and I have a scant 18 hours left. Oy.

Sometimes when you have a lot of work to do, your body just takes over and makes you play instead.

Today was one of those days. I got on my bike with only a vague destination in mind, and found myself just following my feelings (like Luke).

The feelings apparently wanted to meet up with a cute boy and ride to Coney Island.

Nice choice.

The last time I took pics at Coney, I had the Nikon with me, and the results were of the prize-winning variety. Really, really nice shots.

This time, it was just coming on dusk as we arrived, and we first had to entertain ourselves by riding the scary old rollercoaster (primarily scary for me, as I am not the greatest coaster rider, and this one is a whiplash-fest).

So by the time I got my little dinghy out there wasn't much natural light to speak of.

And yet, I really like the results of the neon plus greying sky.

There's something about Coney Island that is hard to describe. It's a little seedy and a little gleeful and a little hokey and a little slice of the past.

You look at it, at those lights on the Wonder Wheel, and something twists a little in your gut, and you think, now there is something.

It's not quite like anywhere else, and you can understand how people get nostalgic about it.

It's the kind of place that makes you nostalgic the first time you go there, for a past that was never yours to begin with.

PS. Click for bigger.