50 years

The show at Shotgun Space was last night, and it was a good time. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to seeing people standing in front of one of my photographs pointing, talking, stepping back, moving up close. The gallery is on the second floor of the building, divided into two rooms that are separated by a sort of sitting area, overlooking the foyer downstairs. We hung out in that in-between space most of the night, talking to my friend, Tia Tuenge, and watching her smart-as-a-whip 4-year-old, Ava, bring hors d’ouevres up from the foyer and run back down to get more.

We got home close to midnight, and I cried myself to sleep. Partly just because I’ve been operating on adrenalin for the past few weeks, trying to get ready for this show and the other two upcoming ones and stay current with my day job. But mostly because S. said something in passing about, “Fifty years from now, you’ll look back on your career . . .” and I realized that, even if he lives to be a hundred, he won’t be here in 50 years. This is not news to me—it’s something I think about every day—but it was the concrete example, the knowledge that, if I’m lucky enough to have a career that spans that long, I’ll be looking back on it without him.

I love photography. But I would put down my camera and never pick up another one again if I could have 50 years with S.

Copyright © 2003 Liz Kuball