Monday, June 6, 2011

#157 OR home movies

My shrink had me recording my evenings for five nights, initially it was a little unsettling to be recording myself but by the end of it I'd forgotten. Poor bugger had to sit through hours and hours of me talking to myself, getting drunk and generally being a basket case. He hasn't told me exactly what he thought, he's cutting together a best-of selection of my insanity. Something to show the grandchildren, for sure. He wanted to see what I'm not telling him, which is a lot. No hiding from the video camera though. He said watching me wake up from the fifth nightmare was pretty hard for him. I was a touch scornful. It's pretty fucking hard to live with, thanks. And he touched me. Not a handshake for only the third time in our illustrious decade-long history (first - I punched him, second - he hugged me) a strange, strong grip on the back of my neck and telling me very firmly while glaring that we will. Fix. This. I hope he's right.

It reminded me of home movies; got a bunch of them in the spare room that I haven't watched since January. There's never going to be a good time to track them all down and spend my time lost in hours of footage of my family. I prefer to carry an SLR but for a while took to hauling around the video camera as well (residual guilt from splurging on it in duty free, why does everything seems like a good idea at the airport?) and I'm glad I did. Glad that flight was delayed so I spent seven hours wandering the endless corridors of Bangkok's vast (and unpronounceable) airport. I have a few clips on my laptop which made me smile, re-watching them today. A smile! At a memory, a first, a relief, the end of this misery is in sight. It's all of sixty seconds, a friend is holding the camera, shaking, sound of him laughing and my wife shushing him. She creeps into frame, holding a saucepan of water, the camera pans across a little to me; asleep in a hammock strung across the porch. As she gets closer her grin gets wider and the camera shakes harder, my eyes open too late, she's already upended the pan and I'm soaked, disoriented and finally - flat on my ass on the deck. The two pranksters are roaring with laughter which turns to squeals as I pull her down onto me, grip her in a tight, wet hug and shake cold water from my hair onto her upturned face.

Christ, I can't believe it's June. Time is crawling and flying. In much the same way as this apartment is too full and too empty.

No comments:

Post a Comment