Several months ago, I found myself drawn into the world of a photographer and the world as this person had viewed it over many years. The photo's are lovely, some capture the senses in ways quite tender. Some are harsh, brutal invaders. Some are sexy and some tranquil. In some, one sees a life lived by the photographer. In others, the life lived by the subject. They are mute because they are photographs, however they speak volumes by what they capture. One I especially like is that of a bushman standing quite still. He has horizontal scars across his torso, his face is passive yet his eyes reach through the photograph of himself and speak to the one behind the camera. This one picture tells a story of a life lived well, defiantly. By well, I believe I mean as by sheer survival. This man is older, wiser, possibly a provider. Is he a grandfather? Does he, by living in the bush of Australia, understand why I live a solitary life in modern America? I am quite certain he does not watch tv commercials, nor broods for days - how could he have survived as long by brooding ? I would guess that his nerve cells are hypersensitive. I believe he is, was, in tune with his environment. Life and survival depend upon that. I think I have digressed again. This photographer invades my dreams. I know not how or why he is drawn into them, other than the obvious - that I put him there. I do not know this person. I have never met him. Yet through his photographs, something primal has woken within me. The urge to be a woman seen not by the camera yet by the photographer behind the camera shakes me to the core and leaves me flushed, wet, drained. I want to run away, shut off my computer, leave the country and pretend that I have not seen his works. That I do not know bits of his life history. That it would be best for me to avoid contact. His sense of humor makes this very difficult. His intelligence is obvious through that humor. I am drawn into him, like a moth caught in the single light that shines in the middle of the forest. I feel battered and worn and not nearly as lovely as I once might have been. I realize that these feelings could be fatal. Not to my life certainly, more so my sensibilities. I FEEL him and this is what makes me want to disappear. God I defended him! This is what brings tears so readily to my eyes, as I am, raw - gutted. Feeling him in my dreams, haunts me while I am awake. I want to get inside him, to know him and understand him. I actually want to be important to him. Where does this come from? I am insignificant in this photographer's life. Hundreds of miles apart, unknown to me, yet pervasive anyway. All because I looked through his camera. And fell in love with what I sensed. This is why being who I am hurts. All the labels from the past, fit. It is a painful existence, this sensitivity living. Feeling others - magnifies, hyperdrives me beyond what I wish normal was, to turn it off as one stops a spigot from flowing. There is much I have locked away in the multiple compartments in my brain. And as curious as I am to unlock the memories, I am far less curious to feel again, what must have been so intense, so complex that survival required a conscious forgetting. Thus the paradox of my dreams. He is still here. I argue all day with myself to banish him. I feel as naked as the bushman. Scarred for life by surviving. Tuned in wanting out. Dying and coming back. Is it all connected - the past trauma and the hypersensitivity ? Curiouser said the Mad Hatter ...
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