A Person Without A Cap

This photo was taken in summer 2020 in Pleasant Hill, California, on the Contra Costa Canal Trail, near an old friend’s house. I photographed with an iPhone 8 Plus back dual camera 3.99mm f/1.8 as I tried to keep away from the unmasked walkers on the trail. Without the necessity of believing in ghosts—although I am not opposed to this belief—in this period many of us feel a new and disquieting emptiness. From our fears, from our dreams, from our isolation. Sadly, this invisible character, who could be one of us, seems to be a bit twisted up.  This ghost of clothing among the leaves has overtones and undertones of homelessness and despair, even with a possible comfort of nature. Unfortunately the dry leaves and ground are not often a comfortable bed. In my 25 years working at public libraries in the East San Francisco Bay Area, the number of patrons experiencing homelessness, some with mental illness, increased tremendously, as did their encampments, in and around downtown areas where I worked—also clothing left behind and bodiless on the streets and on the paths nearby increased as well.

Half-Asleep

This house front is human in its face: both distorted and repellent in its wild grinning. Yet there is another aspect to this face: humorous, perhaps one of our neighbors, or even one of us. Even when we are “not all in this together,” as I often mutter, we have to be in this together because we have no choice. In fact, perhaps the more we resist being in this together, the more we are in this together. Our challenge is to be in this together in ways that can solve problems, rather than creating more problems. I took this photo in a neighborhood nearby: iPhone 8 Plus back dual camera 6.6mm f/2.8, trying to remember whether this house was the childhood house of a friend with whom I am still in touch or, more likely, a house nearby her childhood house I barely recall.

Partially Retaining

In the COVID pandemic period and with its myriad difficulties, even our societal retaining walls are breaking apart. What will hold our communities together, whole, if these walls break apart? The story behind partially retaining is an instructive response: a zoology student of my Dad’s from 60 years ago lived in the house behind this wall with her husband who was a colleague of Dad’s at U. C. Berkeley. Her husband has died along with my parents, but this zoology student who no longer lives in the house assures me that the wall has been just that way since she lived there years and years ago. We shall need that kind of strength to persevere. I walk by this house nearby at least weekly and keep watch; after all, we live literally ON the Hayward Fault. I should assure the current tenants of the house that the wall has been the same for decades. As for earthquakes, well, that’s a different matter altogether. Be prepared! I filmed this wall with an iPhone 8 Plus back dual camera 3.99mm f/1.8, and I especially appreciate the trio of blues in this light.

Precarious

Ah, precarious, indeed! This cactus seems to be growing out of rock, a sort of miracle, and yet it also seems to be about to leave its perch and fall to injury, at the very least. So much feels literally on-the-edge in the era of COVID and in our numerous poverties which COVID has increased so terribly. On a near neighborhood walk I spied this scene and, trying not to lean myself, filmed it with my iPhone 8 Plus back dual camera 3.99mm f/1.8: capturing the precariousness and the strength of the plant hanging on for life was my goal. We all need these strengths now!

Shades of Light

In shades of light, the main character seems to be a stone plant pot. When I saw this fine figure, I felt a little lighter, even a little happier. Perhaps that is because the succulent growing out of the pot and into the light is an image for our better and healthier selves. Thank goodness! This Buddha stone plant pot’s glow—though small, even limited—and its ability to grow plants from its statuary head is a comfort: a strong antidote to despair, so common in this difficult period and an antidote to some aspects of mental illness and the often distressing physical images of mental illness. This was a challenging subject to film with my iPhone 8 Plus because of the combination of brightness and shadows that I strived to capture.

Alan Bern is a retired children’s librarian with three books of poetry: No no the saddest and Waterwalking in Berkeley from Fithian Press, and greater distance from Lines & Faces, his broadside press with artist Robert Woods. Alan has been shortlisted for several poetry and prose awards and has published in a variety of online and print publications. Alan’s story “The alleyway in the downtown library” was a runner-up for the Raw Art Review’s John H. Kim Memorial Prize for Short Fiction. Alan is also a photographer with a number of exhibits and publications, and performs with dancer/choreographer Lucinda Weaver as PACES: dance & poetry fit to the space, and with musicians from Composing Together. Find Alan on Instagram: @abobern, Facebook: alan.bern.1, Twitter: @AlanBern1, linesandfaces.com.