novembers.

I was in a very different place last November.  I was incredibly happy, and then I wasn’t very happy at all.  The photo above was taken during the considerably less-happy time, on a bus to New Jersey.   It’s sometimes hard to look at this photo and not think about the circumstances behind its inception; then again, it’s probably one of the best photos I’ve taken in the last five years, and I can’t help but be a wee bit pleased with myself. 

Which is all to say this: I’ve had two very different songs in my head this past week, one very happy and one very sad.  The sad one, Francoise Hardy’s Rendez-vous d’Automne,  is an old favorite of mine — apparently a very old favorite, as I discovered a few years back that my mother used to sing it to me when I was a child.  (Some people’s parents sing them sweet lullabies; mine sang me songs of longing and despair by hot French chanteuses.)  It’s on a couple of playlists on my iPod, but I only realized this week that there’s an actual video, with lovely Francoise Hardy looking forlorn and ethereal, all at once.  Even though the video itself is a bit boring, there’s something about it that helps to counteract the sheer heartbreak that abounds in the lyrics (which you can read here, if you speak French).   Sometimes when I look at that bus photo, I think about this line — sur le gris bleu de la mer — and it just absolutely kills me. 

But then I stumbled upon an entirely different sort of song,  Rogue Wave’s rather stupendously sappy rendition of Buddy Holly’s already sappy Everyday.  And when you come across this sort of thing on a blog post about a very sweet couple very sweetly eloping in San Francisco, complete with gauzy, dreamy video — well, for anyone who thinks that I’m all sad songs and nothing else, the fact that I can’t listen to the song or watch this elopement video without smiling and/or simultaneously tearing up should tell you how I am so very easily swayed/distracted/lulled into complete and utter sentimental cheeseballness.   When I look at that bus photo and this song is playing, I find myself thinking Sweet Jesus, there is no way I’ll ever be that sad again.  Not with this song in my life.  See what I mean?

Which, really, is all to say this: November 2010 finds me with two very different sorts of songs playing on a loop in my head.  AND I’m currently in temporary possession of a Leica M6, thanks to my friend Peter.   I am most curious to see what sorts of photographic magic/madness unfolds.