Memorium to an Old Friend

Both sunny and gray days, days of great importance and those seemingly insignificant alike, you and I were usually inseparable. When we observed the world together, it seemed like a place with harder lines. You saw everything plainly, redolent of a less-jaded imagination. A landscape, framed and flattered by our eye. Together, we captured the lovely details of both kin and compadre, such as the luminescence of the skin of my betrothed; the dull, television-focused eyes of my brother, engrossed in a long-lasting Tony Hawk Pro Skater trick run. We delighted in a skinny-armed high-school sister excitedly visiting in the town we called home during college, demonstrating her nerve in the middle of Burlington street with a jaunty bouquet of flowers. You revealed the immaculate quality of a lethargic light bulb in broad daylight.

I'll always remember the trip we took to Denmark as our best time together. The otherworldly carnivalia of Tivoli: ballerinas, Kabuki, a restaurant aboard an old pirate ship. I was sorry you decided not to take part in the late night fireworks, but there was something about bright light at night that unnerved you. Perhaps you were starting to fall apart there; there had been early indications of instability. Still, when we visited the beachy, windy Western island of Fanø, we glimpsed jellyfish, by the hundreds, legs buried, just bubbles of quivery gossamer above the surface of the sand. When we drove back to the mainland, away from the coast, past the bunkers of the war days, our unspoken conversation marveled at how far we were from home.

The last time we spent together before you ceased operating was, surprisingly, at a Chicago White Sox game. Someone donated 400 tickets to the high school at which I had just begun teaching. You came along. You were uninterested in spending time with my students, even as I tried to laugh with you at their outlandish snacking. My fiance Joel had once responded to my half-joking request for cotton candy at the ballpark with a, "who-gets-cotton-candy-at the-ballpark?" kind of laugh. The answer is, my dear: high schoolers; ice cream towering out of little plastic bowls in the shape of ball caps, plain old hot dogs, pretzels, candy, gigantic sodas that the cup holders looked at hopelessly, throwing their hands up and sorrowfully shaking their heads, "nope."

You weren't interested. You refused to budge.

They said the problem wasn't worth fixing. They said you were far too gone, and I should find something new.

Old girl, my sweet ramshackle Canon AE-1, your sight was a gift from the manufacturer.