It’s Holga Week, a time to celebrate crappy optics at the very worst time of year, when days are short, and light is in short supply. Isn’t tradition fun?
It’s very much an exercise in film photography, but I’ve enjoyed using my Holga Lens for digital cameras in years past as well, because why not?
I wouldn’t say I’m enjoying it this year. In fact, I hate it, and that’s a good thing, because there’s a lot of hatred in my heart right now. Maybe that’s coming through. Maybe these frames are as ugly as I’m feeling.
Every day I wake up already anxious. That’s the baseline I make worse with cups of coffee and swipes of my screen. It’s stupid and lame to feel this way; it doesn’t change the world one jot. But there are few reprieves. When I focus on my little corner of the globe with my tiny nucleus of a family of two — when I am selfish, and I shut everyone and everything out — I can feel peace. But it’s a false peace. Barely a cessation of hostilities. Barely a humanitarian pause.
But I still seek those moments out. This morning, I felt it here, the closest thing to a folk saint’s shrine in this city, I suppose. It’s close to where I work. I like to visit it when my heart’s heavy. The weight of unconditional and non-transactional love in this space is comforting. This space is actually sacred because people have made it that way with their unconscious prayers.
My heart is broke, but I have some glue. Help me inhale and mend it with you.
Spooky season isn’t so spooky when the dead just keep getting deader all year round. Spooky season’s kinda stupid in comparison, actually. Stupid and lame.