Roused to capture

I usually don’t mind getting up in the mornings, and often sense the time to arise. But when my alarm chirped this morning, I was surprised by how early it felt. I thought for a second that I set the clock wrong the night before. Or that maybe an imp meddled as I was deeply dreaming in slumber. Like usual, I ran late, bolted from the house and hurry-jogged to catch my bus.

On my commute, I just sat. No reading, no games, no thoughts. I kept my eyes unfocused. I tried to just be, come into the morning. The gray sky made this easy. Stopped at a red light, I noticed a young construction worker raised in a basket lift at a construction site, the metal of his temporary prison painted orange-red. On the sidewalk, the engine of the lift was demarcated with orange traffic cones, with streams of caution tape stretched between each one. The worker donned a bright orange hoodie, not his uniform, but his fashion choice for the day. An old, abandoned brick building stood behind the new construction. On what would have been its windows, black-and-white photographs of performers were installed, a dozen or so people blown up and suspended in their art. As the lift moved the worker down to the earth, he moved between the black-and-white artists, frozen in their performances, as if greeting them or joining them in a quick duet. With the perspective I had, the worker and the artists were the same size, interacting. Bright orange life juxtaposed against flat monochromes.

These are days I wish I were a photographer, to capture these serendipitous images that do not translate in paint, cannot be adequately described in words.