Not my photo.

This morning when I opened my eyes the sight of the full moon perched just inches above the building next door greeted me, across the concrete and brick triangle that is our backyard. It was 6:40am.

The sky was still dark, the bedroom window faces west; but it was light enough to give the white of the moon a particular yellow tinge. I had to get a picture of it. I got up without disturbing the lovely Danusia and decided to go to the living room to get my iPhone.

I stopped to pee, that’s what usually wakes me up, the urge to urinate (I have BPH) and after doing so I made my way quickly to the living room to retrieve the phone. Less than three minutes had passed.

I turned the phone on, and flicked the screen up to reveal the camera; but just as I reached the bedroom to get the snap, the phone died. I had not recharged it the night before.

I peered through the window to see where the moon would have been from the angle I’d woken up in, but the moon was gone, set behind the Home Relief Building on Thornton Street. The sky was lighter too.

I can have my phone ready tomorrow, and providing it’s not cloudy I’ll most likely see the same thing. But I doubt I’ll remember, unless I write it all down and plan for it.

I was wondering what to write about today, I was going to write about the final chapter of losing my job at the building, but the union rep never called me back yesterday and that’s all still up in the air.

The whole moon incident brought home one thing to me, the fact that I am different than the people I worked for (and with) and that I probably did not belong there in the first place. I was just marking time.

The biggest difference is that I can find beauty in almost anything, from the way the moon looked in the lower corner of my window this morning to a pile of rubble in the bathtub of an apartment being renovated. The guys at work were mystified, “why are you taking a picture of that?”

“You wouldn’t understand anyway,” I would tell them. If you have to ask, you don’t understand.

My bosses took pictures of things like that, corroded leaking pipes, rubble, cracks in walls, but all for reasons of explanation, of having a record of what went wrong and how it was fixed. I took pictures because what I saw was beautiful in a way.

I just noticed how the words “saw” and “was” are anagrams, and strung together in a sentence they are beautiful in a special way.

That’s what makes me different, I notice things others don’t, and I remark on those things, either by taking a picture or writing about it or telling a little story to someone about it. I help others see the beautiful world, and that in itself is a job, one that I love.

I looked through my iPhoto to find a picture of the moon, I knew I’d gotten a decent photo one night in Mattituck, Long Island last summer, and I noticed again how beautiful a lot of the pictures were, and how varied were the things I took pictures of

I can find beauty in freshly fallen snow on the beach,

 colorful bits of trash on the sidewalk,

a bent FDNY call box,

 a giant plastic eye floating through the air,

the shadows of a still fan on my ceiling,

a dress hanging alone from a fire escape,

something I’ve cooked,

Big Ben on the Thames,

a couple of fighter jets screaming over the Hudson river,

a girls legs silhouetted bare through the material of her dress by the bright summer sun. There is beauty everywhere, if you only take the time to look.

After my last post a friend, Puma Perl contacted me about telling a story at one of her events, she puts on these musical/ literary events where people read poetry, tell stories, do some kind of performance art.

I am flattered and I accepted. I will let you all know when that’s happening, if you are interested. I’m excited about that, a lot more excited than going to hold doors and sign for packages five nights a week.