Sunday, June 11, 2006
The Heart, A Failure & The Fashion Direction
The Heart ConditionLast Wednesday was filled was so much medical jargon that I could have been in the midst of a pre-med crash course. Things with my mother went well, despite the fact that she had to be admitted into the hospital for an overnight stay. The jest of everything is, my mother is sick. She looks healthy but she is really sick. Although the left heart valve is pumping blood, it's not pumping the right amount. The heart muscle in that area has weakened and the doctors don't know what could have caused it. The only guess they can come up with is, she could have gotten sick several years ago with a virus and it caused the muscle to go weak.
She won't need any type of surgery. Her condition is treatable with medication. She's pretty acceptable about the medication. She just figures it's just something to add to all the others she is on. Ever since her stroke she has been on a cocktail of drugs ranging from blood pressure pills to blood thinners.
I spent the time in the hospital room with my mother and father. Because part testing, or the cauterization, call for my mother to lay flat on her back for about four hours with an IV stuck in her left arm, a heart monitor around her neck and a pressure pad on her right arm as the machine took her blood pressure every 20 minutes or so. I had to feed her as she lay in the hospital bed. It was surreal. Me, taking care of my mother who was in such a vulnerable state. I will hand it to her, she refused to let the day sour her mood. We pretty much joked back and forth, especially as she had the thought about having a party in her room at midnight. She was in a suite to herself with a nice view of the front of the hospital. She was equipped with a TV and telephone in the room and part of the goodie bag she backed included her arsenal of word search books, a couple of magazines and books and her IPOD.
Then she joked about the fact of how she hasn't been in a hospital since she had me. I slightly went into a tangent as I mentally did the calculations and realized that I'm almost at the age when my mother had me. I thought it was odd, that my mother was ready to have a family in her late 20's and here I am still trying to stabilize myself and having a kid.. let alone a husband.. is pretty far off into the galaxy. I'll just take a companion for now with the potential of him becoming my hubby and then father of my children. Who knows....
Before my father and I left her for the night, the three of use huddled together and held hands as my father led us in prayer. I was already feeling a bit emotional about the situation, but I had to put on a front to remain strong for my mother. However, when I opened my eyes, I almost let go as I saw my mother in tears. All I could think about were the nightmares about death I had been having with me planning a funeral. I had to leave her room quick, because I just didn't want to break down in front of my mother. So, I hugged her tight, I lingered for a bit, but as soon as her nurse entered the room I was out the door and down the hall. By then I managed to successfully suppress my fragile state.
My mother was discharged the next day, but since her release I see the effects of both, the medication and the cauterization. She is a bit sluggish every now and then and she sleeps more than ever. My father or I end up driving her truck to take her to where she needs to go, but through all of this she has managed to still move on with her life as if her hospitalization was just a rest stop. Needless to say, since her release... I still don't get much sleep.
The Failure?Sometimes I manage to have the kinds of dreams that bring forth a prophetic or spiritual message. I'm still a bit rusty in interpreting them, but the more I analyze them and pick up on certain signs, I see them for what they are or what they possibly mean. Yet, the dream I had last night concerns me. It's only driving me deeper into a nervous state with this magazine, that is if it really is about the magazine.
The dream took me back to school...college that is. I was in a cab on my way to school and I remember I was sitting in the cab with my IPOD ear buds in my ear. I was just grooving to the music and apparently the cab driver was grooving with me as I saw his head nodding to the music I was listening to. Finally I saw a familiar face and I decided to hop out of the cab and walk with this person. In reality she is a girl that I had a couple of math classes with and to this day I still see her around town. We only talked on a phone a couple of times concerning our class work, but a friendship didn't develop. However when we see each other we do talk for a few seconds and then go about our way.
In the dream I'm followed this girl into what I thought was the main building on campus. However, it was structured more like a conservative museum. The interior included a lot of the mahogany wood and marble flooring. I continued to follow this girl and somewhere in the dream I figured we were headed to our Algebra class. However, we don't end up in a regular class room. We end up in an area that looks like a jazz club set up. It's on a top floor and if we looked over the wooded railing we could see down into the lobby area of the building. I took a seat a table and girl I followed sat at another table. At first we were the only two and then others started to show up.
Soon, a live jazz quartet band started to play and everyone was mingling about. I soon learned that this was the class reward for their hard work during the semester. The professor wasn't present, but someone was there passing out a final exam that everyone, but me took the previous week. The person came up to me and handed me my test. I had a red "F" on my paper, and below that F was a listing of zeros I received for the test I didn't take, with their respective test dates. I started to panic, but soon I felt this sense of nonchalant-ness cover me. I didn't care and I ordered a glass of wine. When I got the wine I went back over the paper. That's when I discovered that the test wasn't mine. It belong to a girl I knew back in elementary school, who I haven't seen since I was around 13 or 14. What's interesting is, we share the same first name, but hers is spelled differently.
I called the person over who was handing out the test and alerted her that she gave me someone else’s. She calmly took the test back. The dream ended with me sitting alone at a table, drinking a glass of wine and watching everyone else have fun.
I Don't Know What I Am Doing?I don't know if the dream had any relevance of what took place today. For one I feel like everything is a bit rushed with this issue, especially after dealing with a few setbacks, but if you want to get technical...technically this issue will be on time with the current production schedule set up which is quarterly. This issue will be called the Summer2006 issue. Originally, the plan was for the magazine to go bi-monthly starting with this issue, but part of that meant it would have had to been out by June 1st. Needless to say, we didn't make that mark.
Today was the photo shoot for the cover of the magazine and I found it odd that I was strangely calm about everything as I was getting dressed for it. Mr. Yellow, left it up to me to coordinate the photo shoot(s) with the "models" and the photographer. The concept for this cover is to have a diverse group of women who are featured in this issue and pose them as leaders or pioneers for minority businesswomen (this issue is dedicated to minority women entrepreneurs). Behind this women are going to be the followers, who were the young ladies of the tea society that I joined many moons ago and whom I did another story about for this issue of the publication. Being that today was a big event for the girls as they hosted and participated in their annual fashion show at the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown I seized the opportunity earlier in the week. I coordinated the shoot to take place before the show with the ladies featured as leaders and the girls posed as the followers.
Even though I was pretty calm as I prepared myself for this afternoon, my nerves and pressure didn't go up until my cab taking me to the shoot never showed up. I was supposed to meet the photographer at shoot location at 3 pm and the ladies involved on the cover were to arrive at 3:30. I was still at home at 3. I had to summons my father at the last minute to take me to the Four Seasons. By the time I made it there, three of the ladies that are going to be on the cover were there and the photographer hadn't set up his equipment yet. We only had an hour to do the shoot with the girls, since the show was to start at 15 after 5.
My brain was scattered as I was looking for the Judge to help me coordinate the girls. Somehow I felt I was loosing control. The Judge was asking me questions about the girls like "do you want all of them involved?" and I hesitated. The she begged "tell me what you want me to do!" I don't know how long I hesitated, and I didn't want her to loose her patience with me because she had enough to deal with concerning the fashion show. I finally did give her a straight answer. I told her I wanted all of the girls involved, which was roughly around 20 - 25 of them from ages 9 - 16 .
I don't know how long I had the ladies and girls wait for the photographer to set things up. I know I was really concerned for the girls, because I knew they had a long day in prepping for the show and some of them were complaining about their feet hurting from wearing their heels. I couldn't even enjoy the surroundings I was in, because I was on my toes getting things done administrative with making sure that everyone's photo release paperwork was signed and answering questions about;
"How much longer was it going to be?"
"What did I think about this staircase?"
"What is this photo for again?"
"How about if we stagger the girls a bit?"
I did notice the array of nice outfits floating by, but was too busy to notice the faces with them. I was told that at some point a nice looking Black guy about 6'5 was standing behind me. I was told that the guy was Andre (what's his face) the fashion critic from Vogue. I saw him, even spoke to him but was immediately pulled away to handle another matter.
I was even pulled to the side for a minute by the husband of one of the ladies involved. He gave me a compliment by saying in so many words he didn't know how I was doing it , but it seemed like I had things under control. At the time he said that, the girls were looking famished and the shoot still hadn't fully begun. I smiled and said thank you and he kept saying,
"You really look like you know what you are doing."
Of course in the back of my mind, I totally was loosing it and about to suffer a melt down when I saw that the photographer still wasn't ready and time wasn't on our side. Then I looked at myself in the mirror and felt as if I really didn't know what I was doing. I was just holding everyone in one section of the hotel until we had the staircase clear and the photographer was ready.
I don't know how he did it, but once the photographer got everything going, the shoot was a breeze. The girls did cooperate and once we were done with the girls it was just in time for them to take a five minute breather before the start of the show. Afterwards I had to see about the individual shots for the ladies involved. Needless to say, I didn't get a chance to get a peek into the fashion show. By the time I wrapped things up with the shoot, the show was in the phase of honoring their guests and the parade of fashions had finished up. I seriously had come to a fashion show to work!!!!
It was going on 6:30 and I called it a night as all I wanted to do was head home and eat some BBQ ribs that were waiting for me. I was famished myself as I hadn't eaten all day. I saw my ladies and the photographer off and I hailed a cab home. During my ride home, all I could think about was... Do I really know what I'm doing? I started to fret over other shoots to come this week and thinking terms of the layout of how each person should be in their photo. I got especially worried when the photographer started asking me things I thought he should have already known...
"What about this lighting?"
"Is that jacket that lady is wearing working for you with this background?"
I guess I feel this way, because I'm somewhat put in a position where I can call certain shots, but how do I make that adjustment? I mean going from a person that hardly had any authority to someone with some type of authority is like going from zero to 100 to me. Somehow I feel like Mr. Yellow is testing me. I know he probably isn't, but this past week I picked up a vibe from him. It was strange.
I appreciate the fact he is letting me do my thing with this magazine, but I'm just nervous about how it's all going to turn out. I know I said this is "my baby" and I'm going to see this publication through it's growth, but like all new moms (biological or adoptive) I'm going at all of this blindly. True I have the editorial functions down pact, but the other stuff.... I'm just a mere amateur when it comes to photography with just my basic knowledge about lighting and all. True I have a creative eye for things, but what's in my mind is almost always out of the ball park of what the theme of a situation is.
I know I need to rest and take a chill pill. Everyone keeps telling me things are going to work out fine. I guess I should start believing in that.
Posted by KomplexPhemale ::
10:25 PM ::
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