For me, the best work is done in the morning, with a clear head. When the animals are fed. When Maria is in her studio working. When it is dry and comfortable. When the devices and software are working, meshing, when the photo storage program doesn’t freeze, when the dogs are walked. I take a photo or two, I put up fresh photos every day, to capture the feel of the place right now, I make myself a cup of tea, or a chilled bottle of water,  meditate, do some Tai Chi, , light one of my beeswax candles, disconnect from the outside world. Then I focus.

Once in awhile, days go like that. Mostly, life happens. Daily. This morning I woke up to the news my friend Gary had died, and then I got a phone call from the CBS (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) wanting me to do a taped interview about the ways in which we love dogs and sometimes go overboard and I love being interviewed by the CBC, they actually read books and ask thoughtful questions at some length. But the only available studio was in Albany, so Red and I set out for WAMC and made it by ll and got back home by one p.m., just in time for lunch and to help Maria get an air conditioner into her studio window. Okay, I thought, I can get to work after l lunch.

Then my great lens scheme unraveled. I decided last week to trade my 24-105 zoom lens in for as used version of a medium zoom llens, a fast, reliable every day lens, but much more expensive than the 24-105. So I decided, for the first time in my photographic life, to trade in my old lens and use the money to help pay for a new one. I contacted several photo places, got some prices, then downloaded my shipping label, called Fedex for a pick-up and shipped the 24-105 off in a lot of bubble wrap. I was excited, proud of myself. I always bought new lenses and didn’t trade in any way. I got a good price for the 24-105, opened a new Fedex account and waited for a call-back. It never came, so I got on the phone after lunch to figure out what happened. What happened is that the old lens vanished somewhere between the back porch and the photo place. My crafty deal evaporated. Fedex kept sending me to websites that tracked my tracking history but I had no tracking history and no tracking numbers.

It is nothing but a mystery, as Fedex has a record of  my pick-up request but no record of having picked up or delivered the lens. I know the Fedex drivers, they are completely reliable, and after hours of wandering around the  Fedex phone tree (and getting disconnected several times) it was determined that there is no record of the lens being picked up or taken anywhere. My lens does not exist, except in my imagination and memory.  I had not, of course, kept  records of all my tracking numbers, codes and receipts. I’m the kind of person who usually doesn’t. I used to live with somebody who always did.

My lens plan, it seemed, had collapsed, and worse, I am without my every day lens. I got back on the phone and ordered an almost new lens, it is coming Thursday and I will pay full price for it. The lens switch didn’t work out the way I expected, but this is what I mean by life happening. An unseemly ending to my crafty lens-trading plan.  A working day unraveling. It is now late afternoon and instead of writing some chapters on my next book, I am writing about not writing chapters at all. So it goes.

But I have a new motto and it works  for me.  I am only here for a minute, a primordial blink, a macro dot on the ass of history. I am not going to spend it lamenting the loss of my lens, the collapse of my new and more frugal photography, my poor record keeping. I have a hunch my lens will turn up one day, it got stuck on somebody’s truck somewhere. And I will drive a hard bargain for it.

I imagine my friend Gary is laughing at me. Dumbass, he would be saying. Next time, write down the tracking number.