the crisis is past, at least some kind of crisis. the echocardiogram showed a normal heart with a blip in one of the valves (wonder to see it beating, the four chambers). on the stress-test runway i lasted nine minutes as it ran faster and steeper. my pulse remained low, as did the pressure of blood. thus, my body's stable, even at this age, my many prior terrors all for naught.
true, i did visit the hospital three times where my friend karma lay with an opened chest and five bypasses created with veins from his leg (his birthday within three weeks of mine). up and down the halls were blatant signs of mortality and for awhile in the world everyone look like a corpse waiting to happen!
gradually that passed. karma's home, stronger every day. in three months they say he will be able to do everything he once could, including trekking in the himalayas. still, i can't forget what la rochfoucauld wrote,"few people know how to be old." and to pull myself up i photographed dancers. amazing how young they've become, even in the three years since i took the class myself.
i tried out a couple of older digital cameras to test their merits. of course, they're slower than the latest product, however they seem to have a better image quality, the pictures full of intimacy and emotion. why have today's models lost the capacity to capture these?
even before driving up the mountain yesterday and fighting the wind to carry boxes of books into the tower, my spirits had risen. the night before i'd attended the final lecture of a favorite teacher, jim mcmanus, an expert in the life and works of marcel duchamp. at the end the students gave him a standing ovation. in the final tally that's what matters, what others have learned from us.
dancers: www.pbase.com/wwp/choreo2
older cameras: www.pbase.com/wwp/revisit
