I had spent my day speaking in French, Italian and a
bit of Spanish. My brain was hardly “thinking in English” when I stopped next
to a store that was being transformed from one fashion store to another.
The
old poster was still on the outside wall, while workers were frantically
working inside putting down a new floor and hanging display cabinets.
There was enough light for my old Nikkor 50mm to take
a photo opened to f1.4. However it was not the perfect frame of the step ladder
and mural poster, but the writing on the wall.
“All Is”, it read.
I did not know about the store, so could not tell if
it was a logo of sorts belonging to the old store, as was the mural poster. But
it also looked like it was written on the wall with a spray can paint. If so,
was it a Zen statement?
While I pressed the camera shutter knob, my brain
was back to thinking in English… I remembered many decades ago, as a student in
secondary school, receiving a comment from my teacher at the end of an essay I
had written. He said something like “All
is plural and singular. You can say “all is well” or “all of us are well”. You
have to be careful about context.”
… So, how does one put an incomplete sentence in
context?
It was a delightful moment, as I came up with many
ways to complete that sentence while walking along the Danube River.
Yes, it is all about context. That is why I took
that photo.
PS/ The photo was taken in Vienna, Austria. When I passed by the store a day later, the mural poster and writing were gone. The wall was repainted and that moment gone forever. Except on my roll of film!
December 21, 2016
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2016
No comments:
Post a Comment