Regret and Wisdom

What did you mean, 'regret'? asked Pliny the Elder.

I mean the regret of missed opportunities, I replied.

Opportunities for what? asked Pliny.

Photo opportunities, I said. Let me give you an example. I was in Hyde Park with my camera. I saw a letterbox set into a whitewashed wall, drenched in sunlight. The letterbox was decorated with a fringe of pink crepe paper, which rustled in the breeze.

I assume you didn't stop and take a photograph, which you regretted later on?

That's true. I kept on walking with the camera in my pocket and the letterbox receded into history.

And mystery?

Yes and mystery. Why decorate a letterbox that way? It would have made it difficult to put the letters in. And if it rained, the letters would get stained with pink.

Perhaps it was someone's birthday, suggested Pliny.

Perhaps it was. Anyway, it doesn't matter now.

It isn't lost, said Pliny, just because you didn't photograph it. You've remembered it, and even written something down. So you have captured it after all.

But I might be remembering it wrong. If I had the photo I could see.

The photograph might also have remembered it wrong, said Pliny sagely.

My Camera

I have a new camera. It's not replacing an old camera. Until now, I've never had a camera of my own.

It's in a box, a little cardboard box, with the top torn off. It has a special cable, that likes to stay curled up.

The cable is like me. I like to stay curled up. But I wanted the camera. So I have to change my modus operandi.

My modus operandi, before I had the camera, was simple. I looked at things, and turned them into sentences.

Now, if I've remembered to take my camera with me, I look at things, such as

a row of bicycles outside a shop
a row of wooden ducks
an Edwardian gentleman speaking to a lady through a listening tube, painted on a fence.
a smiling plaster chef outside an antique shop, holding up a sign
yellow, blue and red-and-white posts along a linear park trail
water spreading over sand
and yachts at the end of pathways through the dunes

...with a view to what they'll look like in a frame.

That is fine, it's good to see things differently. But what I must get over is regret.

As yet, this hasn't worked out very well.

Regrets

My first regret was that we spent a great deal of time looking for a pencil. My second was that Pliny the Elder turned out to be a dab hand at drawing a Norfolk Island Pine.

You probably googled up a photograph of one after you read my blog, I said accusingly.

No, he said. I know how to draw every type of tree.

Well! I said. How extremely boastful. Why are you always trying to get the better of me?

I am not trying, he said.

I was quite annoyed and determined to beat him at something. Then I remembered my party trick. I bet you can't prove Pythagoras's Theorem off the top of your head using that pencil, I snapped.

Pliny looked taken aback. Why? he said. Can you?

I can, I said, ( hoping it was true). But let's see what you can do.

Pliny drew a right angled triangle with his pencil. Then he extended a square out from the hypotenuse. He thought for a while, then he labelled the shorter sides of the triangle a and b and the hypotenuse c. Next he labelled the other 3 sides of the square c as well. He was doing it very slowly. I knew he was playing for time. He's stuck, I thought. Hoorah!

Come on, I said, can't you remember what comes next? (I was playing a dangerous game because I couldn't remember what came next either.)

O Fortuna! said Pliny suddenly, with a jerk of the hand. I've broken the pencil.