Les-a-lee

I’m having a really hard time this week writing about what I want to, my wife Leslie, “the force that through the green fuse drives my flower,” but I’m worried I may be straying too far afield from photography.

Of course, if one were interested in me personally, then this would all be good grist for the mill; but, if one is interested in the photographs (the text, as they say in the new vernacular) maybe I am straying too far from the source.

I try to assume that my interior house has many doors you could enter through, and still find your way to the heart of the matter. This blog has become so peculiar to me, because even though I am very public in my pictures, I am actually very private in my deepest thoughts.

But onward and upward we go on this wonderfully dreary Tuesday morning.

So two weeks ago, my wife, my daughter, and myself went off to Spain, Barcelona in particular, for a vacation. Essentially, the reason for our trip was an exhibition of my work in a museum in Teruel, about four hours from Barcelona, which was wonderful and very special, but this escapade will wait for another time.

What I really want to talk about is Leslie, the ying to my yang. She is quiet to my notoriousness, focused and hardworking, while I am lazy, and love most to eat and nap. Where we most compliment each other though, is in our sense of humor.

You see, I think myself quite funny, a modern day Woody Allen with a camera. And Leslie, to my great despair, has no sense of humor, I mean none, nada, nichts. Here I am, making jokes, trying my best to be funny, and it falls on flat ears.  She reminds me of a dog who looks quizzically at you with a sideward glance, trying to figure out what planet this person has come from.

One would think that this lack of simpatico would be a problem, but in fact, without her realizing it, she is my straight-man. If I am Hardy, she must be Laurel.

I used to be able to capture this in film. We have now been married almost twenty years, and it is time to start again with my Leslie book. Harry Callahan had Eleanor, Steiglitz had Georgia O’Keefe, and I have my Leslie.

So back to our wonderful hotel in Barcelona, which Leslie had found and organized in her special way. We were in our beautiful five-star hotel, and I was so happy because the bed was so comfortable. I could nap with a spiritual satisfaction. Why bother, when you are a few hundred feet from Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, to see it in person when you can see it perfectly well in your dreams.

Now Leslie is a woman who needs to blow her hair. There is always this constant hum in the background, morning or evening, of hair being blown this way and that, pulling, tugging, blowing it to conform. Over the years, the companies that have manufactured these machines, must have been able to avoid any recession, because it seems religiously that every few months, this hair blower burns out, blows up, fizzles out, and she’s off to find a new one.

Well, the first evening in Barcelona, as I began to slowly revel in the luxuriousness of the room and the comfort of my bed, all at once, I hear a huge explosion, a large pop and all the lights in the room have died.

She did it again. Her precious innocuous hairdryer just blew out all the lights throughout Barcelona.

The hotel went first into darkness, and then this machine slowly began to suck out whatever power was left in poor Barcelona. Don’t ever mess with Leslie and her dryer.

The next morning, as equilibrium seemed to return to the city, a crew of men brought in a new special nuclear power source, to supply all the juice that Leslie could ever need. I may have a camera, but Leslie has her hairdryer. For all her lack of humor, she is the most beautiful and funny person I know.