After the Storm and Selfies

The Guy Land Cafeteria was full to the rafters and it didn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to figure out why. Anyone with any sense stayed inside and out of the sub-zero temperatures all week as heavy, polar vortex inspired snow and cold descended over Michigan, but you can only stay home for so long and when a window in the weather opened up yesterday, we escaped our ‘prisons.’ I, for one, needed stuff. I needed to stop at the post office, UPS, the grocery store and Chow Hound where I had a nice conversation with a ‘sample guy’ giving away bags of freeze-dried meal boosters for dogs, the very product I’d gone to the store to buy. I discovered the product a couple of weeks ago when I was looking for something to fool Levi into thinking I’ve turned into a world class chef.

The sample guy was an official company representative who stood behind a card table handing out samples and $5.00 coupons. He was in his 40’s, a nicely groomed, super-fit and take charge kind of guy which begs the question of why a man like him would have a job handing out samples. There’s probably a hard luck story in there. If I had been a skilled conversationalist like my husband was, I would have found out his backstory but I’m not, so the guy remains a mystery to mull over in my idle mind. And my idle mind turned him into a FBI agent who's moonlighting because he fears another government shutdown.

But the backstory of a woman I sat near at the Guy Land Cafeteria was not hard to guess. She was old enough to have a five-six year old daughter with her in the booth, sitting on the same side where plenty of selfies were taken by the child. When the mother left to pick up their food after her number was called I noticed she was wearing two watches---a Fitbit and a man’s watch that wasn’t made in this century and didn’t fit her. I know watches. My husband had dozens of them and I gave several of his watches away after Don died. I even wore one of them myself for four-five months. Its band was too large and the face too big for a woman, but wearing something that Don had loved and worn in his last months on earth made me feel closer to him. The mother at lunch---I’d bet money on it---had lost her dad in recent weeks and she was wearing his watch. I’d also bet money that if I had made an admiring comment about the watch, she would have shared her loss and I would have said a few comforting words. Was it a missed opportunity that would have added to the pool of human warmth and kindness or would I have been invading her privacy? I vote for the former but as I age I second guess myself more and more.

Back to the topic of selfies. From where I sat at lunch I could see everyone at all the tables. It’s a big place but even so I was shocked at how many children scattered around were taking selfies. What is the fascination with taking photos of yourself? What is it going to be like for these kids growing up if they are so self-absorbed with their own images as children? I see a lot of selfies on my Facebook page, too, and I just don’t get it. A friend my own age even peppers her Facebook with her newest selfies. “Can you tell I lost a pound yesterday?” No, but I’d tell her I found it if I thought she wanted it back.

If I’m going to be honest here, I’d have to admit that back in 1967 when I was pen-palling with Vietnam soldiers, I took some selfies. Back then a selfie involved having a tripod for your camera and a timer to release the shutter. The timer gave you a few seconds to get back in front of the camera. My selfies served a purpose---strangers I met by mail had all suggested a photo exchange. I try to use that experience to identify with the selfie addicted and I wonder if phone cameras have been around back in 1967 would I have been caught up in Cult of Selfies?

  

Back in that era when I was a true camera buff, I mostly took candid shots of people who didn’t know I was shooting photos of them. Today if I tried that I’d probably get put on a pervert predators list. I took candid photos I thought I might like to paint in oil as well as for assignments in photography classes. “Ya, sure,” I can hear a cop in the park say in today’s world, “that’s what all the perverts say.” At a family gathering last year I tried taking photos of the toddlers in our family, but something strange happened. The minute I (or anyone else) pulled out the cell phone, the little kids stopped what they were doing, posed and froze a smile on their faces. I fear there will never be another candid shot of anyone ever again in Cell Phone Generation. I miss those kind of photos, the ones where body language or pensive looks off into the distance told a story. I miss a lot of things but mostly I miss having a steady enough hand to click/press a shutter without moving the cell phone. I cannot take a good picture with a phone and carrying a regular, heavy camera around makes me feel old. ©