Not everyone has the opportunity to be
photographed at work. One of the parents of a junior class student has a new
camera, and with permission from us and the other parents, has been whiling
away the wait with shutter clicks.
In my desk based day jobs some daydreaming was inevitable. They were moments of
retrieval: self-preservation. I would view my desk as a still life, see how all
the greys of the table tops and old fat boxed computer screens were patterned
in the shade of the office foliage, how futile the chain of coloured paperclips
as perceived against the weight of in-tray contents. I would think up
electronic responses that could never be writ, in case I pressed the
irresistible Send. Inevitable, too, the gaze that drifted through the window
out into blue or cloud or glare or stars or one's own reflection. In those
in-trays lay so much that was nonsense and so much that was pitiful, regardless
of the job. Generics and specifics, absorbed in my pauses, part of my
experience, not part of me: not the vital core of me. No job should ask for
your soul and neither should you give it. A vocation is a different thing: it
is in your soul all ready, and merely needs to channel out. There are moments
still when my mind is conjuring or capturing: when the scene is all art: I see
concentration, uncomfortable effort: see the effort blossom towards mastery:
observe the smile of achievement. In the midst of this, I am a portrait, a true
image.
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