taking a shot

Every morning when I sit in the park, I plan out my day in my head. Sometimes the day is full of errands, I route them out. I take into account if and when I'll become hungry and what neighborhood I will be in when that hunger comes about. When I do everything in my mental checklist, the day leaves me feeling satisfied and with a purpose no matter how mundane the tasks of that day were.

Lately however, I sit in the park and I can't think of anything I ought to do. There's nothing I 'need' nor anything I would want. I dig and dig and dig for things. I scroll on my phone and look at cleaning supplies I might want to try. I try and think of what I might want to write. I think maybe I'll want to write at a coffee shop but all of the coffee shops I usually like to write at have begun to bother me. Should I start writing at a bar at 1 in the afternoon somewhere far uptown? I talk myself out of it because I don't want to take the train downtown at rush hour. I tell myself I'll try a new restaurant but I always talk myself out of that too because I worry I won't like it. 

I thought for a moment that this weird phase I am in is because I'm losing my spirit in daily living. Not in a way that a doctor would prescribe as depression but that maybe it's all simply getting old to me. As a creature of habit this is a startling place to come to. I tell myself over and over again that change is good, that transitions in life are some of the most poignant times for growth but I always lose sight of that ladder. I want to stay right where I am! But I hate where I am. 

Of course I don't hate where I am in my life, in fact I am rather satisfied with my work life, my home, and my social life. I've spent hours wondering where this nameless and invisible void came from and when. 

Around a year ago, my camera broke. I wasn't too torn about it. These things happen. Film cameras are especially fragile and like a everything, they may die without any warning. I saw that death as a great time to try something new. I bought a camera on Ebay that broke within a week and I hated the way the photos looked despite it being $600 and every photographer told me they loved it. Now I had no money and no camera. I was mad! Fast forward to July, a friend sold me his $2,500 camera for $500! What a steal I thought! But that camera hasn't felt like mine and I don't think it ever will. The photos just aren't me.

So on it's way from Japan as I write is the camera that I hope will bring me closer to normalcy. The camera that died about a year ago, not the same one but one that it's now previous owner claims was only used a few times. Just thinking about it being on it's way is making me smile. It's the perfect camera for me. I have missed it so much and I wonder if I'm putting too much weight on the thing but I am getting fidgety just thinking about it.