The D.T.s and Shifting Gears

I’ve got the detox jitters. I am going through a serious case of withdrawal. After spending my weekends viewing the world through the lens of my camera during my twenty-year career as a wedding and portrait photographer, I traded in my professional gear for a mid-range point and shoot. I took over 30,000 during my two years in Hong Kong. Then my camera was stolen on an overnight bus in China. I survived the remainder of our China trip by commandeering my daughter Annika’s little $60 camera. Now that she has taken that camera back to The States with her, I have found myself without a camera. After averaging 1,500 pictures a week for two years, I have now gone three weeks without taking a single picture. My finger sometimes twitches.

But old habits die hard. Everywhere I go, I keep framing pictures in my head. Mentally, I continue to take pictures.

My wife keeps asking me if I want to squeeze in this or that Hong Kong attraction. I keep turning her down. What’s the point of going to see something, if you can’t take any pictures to chronicle the experience?

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When we first game to Hong Kong, I think the excitement and adrenaline of living in a new city shifted us into overdrive. When I look back at all that we did those first two months –weekend at Cheung Chau Island, climbing Sunset peak, visiting Kadoorie Farms- it’s a little insane. Eventually, we realized that we couldn’t maintain that manic pace and settled into a more realistic rhythm.

Knowing that once this school year ended and we returned from our recent foray to the Mainland that we would only have one final month in Hong Kong, I fully expected to find myself shifting into high gear in a panicked attempt to soak up every last bit of all that Hong Kong has to offer.

But much to my surprise that hasn’t happened. I have been pretty laconic as our final days in Hong Kong wind down.

Maybe it’s the fact that teaching kindergartener and first graders in summer school leaves me absolutely exhausted by 1:00 when they go home. Maybe it’s that I am enjoying the slower pace of life now that our girls are back in The States and it's just Julie and me.

Maybe its that I have no camera –so what’s the point anyways, right?