Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
Step out of line, the men come and take you away
The words from Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth,” (1968) won’t leave my head. They arrived for unknown reasons late yesterday afternoon. Is paranoia a side effect of one of the medicines? I want to think that it is, but at 4:00 this morning, I was up checking because wondering about it was driving me nuts. It doesn’t show up in any of the major meds that I take every day. We’ve been on everything for over a year. I would expect that we’ve seen all the side effects we’re going to see. Yet, I can’t help wondering what’s going on in my head.
Being broke isn’t helping any. My checking account is overdrawn and I need $100 to bring it back or it gets closed. I need the account to be active because the social security deposit goes there. If the account is closed, I don’t get the funds and the situation gets worse. But I can’t ask for help, either. That’s against the rules. If someone just gives me money, that’s okay, but I can’t ask for help. I feel caught in a trap from which I can’t be released.
I hate asking Kat for anything. She’s so good at masking her real feelings I never know what she’s thinking. I fear that at some point soon she’s going to have me committed and I’ll end up in a hospital room or something strapped to a bed, unable to leave. Ever.
Perhaps this fear will go away if I talk about it. Maybe there will be some type of reassurance in today’s mail.
No, I’ve not had any weed.
Trust is something I am missing. I need to know I can trust my care team, my family, my friends. I need to be able to trust that things are getting where they’re supposed to be, and I’m not sure of anything at this point. What have I turned in? What’s missing?
I’m scared.
2021 In Review: The Final Year
Our last year started slow but ended with pictures to carry into 2022
This was the year that broke the proverbial camel’s back. After 37 years, we decided that the costs were too high, the effort too great, and the frustrations too often to bother continuing as a photographer. Officially, we pull the plug on New Year’s Day, but barring some exceptional occurrence, we’ve already taken the last picture. The camera is safely stowed in case I decide to pull it out again, but it’s out of the way, out of sight, and hibernating. One of my chores today is to remove the lights from the back of the car and store them out in the shed along with my tripod and reflectors. We’re done.
Sort of. As slow as this year started, the last six months have been full of activity, much more than we’ve had time to process. Much of this was intentional. I wanted to have enough new material to still enter juried shows for the next couple of years (assuming they survive). As a result, I still have several hundred unprocessed images waiting for my attention. I won’t release them as regularly as I have before, and when I do it may be a single image rather than a full set.
From a public perspective, we’re taking this website into archive mode. There will be no information about booking or hiring. We’ll re-work the portfolios and they’ll take a dominant position on the front page in video format. New material will be toward the bottom of the front page and most easily accessible through social media posts.
Can I be coaxed into shooting again? Maybe. We’ll see how it goes. If I do, it will be on a shoot-by-shoot basis. The concepts need to be original and enticing, something I’ve never shot before, and the people involved need to be exciting. And it will cost more. Just getting everything checked and out the door is going to be more of an effort, so the price is going to be higher. No, I still won’t shoot your wedding. I’ll officiate if you ask (yes, I can do that), but I won’t take pictures.
So, here’s a brief glance back at what we did this year. There’s not a lot. Jan-April was pretty slim. We didn’t post anything the entire month of May because there wasn’t anything to post. That’s largely what prompted this decision. As always, click on a thumbnail to view to collection full screen on your device. Thank you for all the years you’ve watched, encouraged, and commented. We’ll miss you.
-charles
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