I feel like my brain has been amputated

I'm like a drug addict coming off something cold turkey. I'm talking about not having a camera. It is so hard.

I'm using some fun iphone "camera" trickery to create images that are rather interesting, but they aren't photographs. It's unsatisfying and I'm cranky as hell. The iphone "camera" is awkward to use, has no zoom whatsoever (you can zoom but the result is so grainy, it isn't worth it). It is not sufficient for My Great Need to Take Photographs. Ipics are the methadone to the top grade opium of photography taken with a real camera.

It isn't as if I didn't understand how important photography is to me. I've always been a photographer, since I was a little girl. I have albums, boxes and drawers full of old pictures. I have albums full of polaroids too of course. Once digital cameras came into my life, nothing could stop me from plunging even further into the practice of this life long pursuit.

My ex-camera had just passed the 50,000 image mark when it gave up the ghost. I took 50,000 pictures, had 50,000 thoughts.

Now, coming off my daily fix, I am fit to be tied. I'm having no thoughts, nothing, nada. The lightbulb above my head is switched off, replaced with a buzzing fluorescent question mark.

I would head out to Embassy Camera in a shot except I've been working full days without sufficient breaks between clients to do a proper study of the possibilities for my new camera. I need to work now, make hay while the sun shines, since there's likely to be a government shutdown next week, in which case everyone will cancel their appointments -- or so I fear this may happen.

I could order something over the internet, but I need to hold my cameras, look at them in real life, before purchase. I'm not sure what I want yet. Reading specs on the computer is meaningless to me.

As well, it seems important to go through this painful withdrawal. It's a forced restart for my thinking process. I'm forcing my mind to seek new paths through the logjam of my neural network. They say that this kind of abrupt change of habit helps keep the aging brain from hardening into concrete, so that's a good thing.

Is it? My mood is foul, I'm struggling to write here and on the other blog. My entire creative process has been upended.

But meanwhile I've been given tremendous dreams, a new animal guide, too. I'm doing a lot of Reiki sessions at the moment, too. My spiritual side is stretching out even as the way I think, via Walking While Taking Pictures, is not possible at the moment.

Is it another bloody opportunity for growth? Hence, maybe a very good thing all around? I don't know. I can't think, and I am not enjoying this part!

I'm telling you that trip up to the Finger Lakes packed a wallop. Wow. Or should I say whoa?

Shalom.

The look on my face says it all. This thing is NOT a camera!!