Loose lips
rambling...The lips are on the loose.
A colleague stepped into my office the other day to inquire about a set of lips left on his desk. He was told they might have come from our department. I gazed at him over the rims of my glasses, and shook my head, "Lips?" I repeated back to him. "Yes, they're some sort of gadget that you hook up to a phone," he replies.
"Oh, I remember those." There were three sets that someone had purchased off of Moot last year in the department. Some of my coworkers really enjoy the website and pick up unusal items from time to time. The gadget hooks up to a cell phone and the lips move when the person on the opposite end speaks.
"The problem," he says, "is that I don't own a cell phone. Do you know who gave them to me?" The lips likely moved on a while ago. I told him I had no idea where those lips had been.
He's a good friend and fellow photographer. He looked suddenly uncomfortable, imagining he'd have to ask someone else who left the lips, and the sorts of silly answers he'd get. It wasn't me. I don't own a working cell phone either. Someone was probably thanking him for doing a marvelous job on writing a program and presenting him a major award (like the leg lamp from "A Christmas Story" only a different body part.)
So to make things better, I changed the subject... to photography and told him about the most lovely scene I had just encountered outside the building on our first sunny day of Spring. The heat and the season had caused the cherry trees to drop their petals in abundance. There were two adorable children in the park scooping up the petals like snow and having a petal fight. It was fantastic watching the puffs of petals punching the air and scattering like fireworks and the children's delight. I'd left my camera at my desk, rats!
But someone else must have had a camera, and a photo of the scene was on today's front page of the local newspaper. I'm glad it was a moment not lost. There's actually been a ton of great photography in the paper lately. There must be a true genius at the beach taking pictures. A steady stream of artistic photos have been appearing for the last few months. This one was local, just on the block.
I'm hardly away from my desk this season and am focusing on the moments of other's introperplexion and joy.
Maybe Sunday I'll take some time for photos.
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