Who are you? (Who who – who who)

This afternoon I was looking through a basket of old photos at an antique shop in Petaluma and noticed something interesting happening. Usually when I'm looking for photos, I have something specific in mind – pictures of people fishing, or old wooden farm houses, or babies with dogs, or a certain era or artistic style. I'm especially partial to bad amateur photography from the 1920s and 30s, back when the average person started being able to have their own camera and take their own pictures of whatever they found interesting. Any earlier than that, you mostly just see studio portraits, which can be nice, but lack the unpredictability and just downright goofiness of so many of the personal, unprofessional shots. Heads or shoulders slightly out of frame, eyes closed, blurry hands or faces, someone goofing off when they were supposed to be acting serious – the ones nobody in the family wanted to keep are the ones I like best.

Today I was feeling a little out of it – hungry, drifty, and kind of tired – so I wasn't really looking for anything in particular. Just browsing, drowsing ... And what I noticed was that every time I caught myself spacing off, and came back to see what I was actually doing, I found that I had been examining the faces in each photo to see if there was anyone I knew. Hmm! If I'd been really paying attention to myself I don't think that would have happened, because I would have been aware the whole time that the chances of my recognizing anyone in any of the photos would have to be very close to zero.

I just think it's cool that my basic mind, when left to itself, just automatically starts looking for (and expecting to find) the friendly, sympathetic faces of loved ones. That seems like a very positive, healthy human kind of expectation to have. It also feels somehow a bit contrary to what I often think I expect, which is for people to be self-centered and callous and critical at least about half the time. Sigh. I don't know what I think, really. People who know me often chide me for just the opposite offense – for believing people are nicer and better than they really are. They think I'm not hard enough on other people and give them too much credit for being "good."

I suppose that might be true, actually. But if it doesn't put me in danger, what's the harm in giving people the benefit of the doubt? It doesn't have to mean you're a doormat or a chump. It just means you're willing to keep your mind open. I do try to do that, and when I am surprised by someone's behavior, it's almost always a pleasant surprise. People very often do rise to the occasion, when the opportunity is there. For example, a couple of weeks ago I came within a few feet of plowing into a guy with my shopping cart as I walked across the parking lot to return it to the front of the market. My first impulse was surprise and anger – he stepped out right in front of me! But then he opened his mouth ... and what he said was, "Hey, it's so hot out here – I'm heading into the store, want me to take your cart back?" It was so nice, and so unexpected! It was really hot that day, and walking on that sizzling black pavement was awful. That guy's small gesture totally made my day. And he didn't have to do it. So why did he do it? Well, why NOT do it?

Or think about Katrina. Sure, there was looting, bad things happened. But the overwhelming impression I received from watching that whole nightmare unfold was, "Wow! People are coming out of the woodwork from all over the world to help here." Same with September 11. I cry every time I see the footage ... I cry just thinking about it ... all those images of people running toward the fire. Running there without stopping to think it through, just running to be there, to help. It breaks my heart. In a good way.

I heard something along these lines on This American Life recently – something about how brain research has shown that what we think of as human morality may be hard wired into the brain much more than we think, that we have a powerful inborn inclination to Not deliberately harm other humans .... that the violence so many people seem to believe is innate and inevitable may in fact be neither. The implications of this kind of research are comforting.

Anyway. When I get the scanner plugged back in I'll maybe post a few of the photos I bought today. The theme ended up being "Photos Whose Titles Came To Me As If In A Dream." The best title: Man With Broken Bird.

P.S. Two more things. 1) This morning I was going through some more boxes of clothes and pulled out my battered old paint-spattered motorcycle jacket, from college. I put it on and walked out to show it to Mr. A. His response: "Nobody who knows you here would believe you ever wore a thing like that. You're too sweet!" Grr! I'll show him sweet .... 2) My next door neighbors have just commenced what is apparently going to be a night-long, full-blast, outdoor singalong celebration of the lung-busting and earnest-as-heck vocal sound stylings of one of my most reviled bands of all time – Journey. Strangely, I am kind of enjoying it. Maybe I'll go over there with a pie or something one of these days. Or not. Of all the houses on our road, they're one of only two that didn't show up for the get-to-know-your-neighbors party last fall ... so all I know about them is that their house is worth about three million dollars, and that every spring they leave a note in our mailbox asking us to please trim the grass All The Way Up To Our Side Of The Fence – even though Mr. A has never failed to do so long in advance of the date the grass turns brown, and is in fact probably even more of a fire-phobe than they are .... Oh, I also know that they illegally drain their pool into the creek. Nice people. But it figures. Journey!!!