Taken by that Stranger

Competing visions for how to use the day.  On the one hand I had lots of must-do follow-up work after a long vacation, followed by teaching a course.  But more than a few times going I’d also considered going out and getting some pictures printed and some posters framed.  There are rituals to returning from a trip.  A journey isn’t over until some of these things are done.  The goofy refrigerator magnets have all been slapped on to the fridge.  The laundry’s all been cleaned.  One thousand new random photos are already part of what circulate on my screen saver.  And I want to get some items up and framed on the wall. 

First, I choose a bunch of photos to have blown up.  As happens to most people, I suppose, there is no, perfect, family photo.  Didn’t we take more distant shots at the pyramids?  There were three or four shots taken by that stranger at Karnak.  What happened to those?  This is right below the pyramids and it could be a pile of rocks anywhere.  I look fine in this one, but the Mrs. isn’t likely to appreciate that she’s cast off to the side.

I sift through the thousand to choose ten that seem worth having committed to print paper.  And now I must choose from among the ten-print set of lovely reproductions I secured of the painter David Roberts.  I’d begun to notice his work in our Air B&B in Cairo, our hotel in Luxor.  Not that I knew whose work it was, but many places that wanted to convey an air of nineteenth century solemnity had one or another of these wonderful sketches by the Scottish painter.  In Luxor, on the second trip, I made time to visit a respectable gift shop and, miraculously, they had more than one, ten-print sets of paintings by Mssr. Roberts for sale. 

I’ve put them all out on the living room table.  A few of them I don’t care for.  He seems to have missed it on the enigmatic Sphinx, more than once.  There are a few that one or another of our party crapped out on viewing so that won’t do to frame.  In the end I choose a remarkable print of a view back towards Luxor from the river with a dahabiya in the foreground.  No.  We weren’t technically on the river there but I suspect everyone will be keen to remember sight of sales on the Nile.  I also decide upon an imposing view of the columns of Karnak and then another of the solitary obelisk at Luxor which, though by myself, I can recall staring up at for quite some time.  This one then, for my office, perhaps behind the door.

Wednesday, 7/24/19