I managed to turn my Holocaust essay in 2 hours before the deadline. Walked in to Lictenstein's office at around 1. I used to stress for days on end before capitulating and writing a paper last minute, but this time I think I knew it would happen anyway, so I stressed less. It must have been yesterday when I was walking Guss and thinking that it really doesn't matter whether I wrote it over 3 days or 3 hours. I know more than I can write, I get it, the grade is simply a grade on how I can best put some syntax together. I wasn't going to stress about spending the evening before a final paper is due in Bastrop at the most surreal high school baseball banquet in the history of sports ("What are we doing here" asked Elisabeth Dillon) simply because I knew what was more important. "People matter, connections matter. Grades don't," I said aloud. "Stop kidding yourself. Get over it". It's a work in progress.
Professor Lichtenstein, always eager for me to ask her about something (Rudi Mazarek's transcendental sacrifice, the Holocaust as an onion of understanding, US passivity) seemed to appreciate the fact that I told her I would have rather done the exam orally. "I could talk to you about this for hours but I can't write it down cohesively" I suggested, fully aware that I could indeed write it down cohesively, just not in 3 hours. She thanked me for being in her class and for being so hell bent on saying something every three seconds, "You may have noticed why I called on you so much". I miss that kind of thing. I told her I'd send her emails whenever I came across something else within the Holocaust that I couldn't understand, and wished her good luck in Michigan. Great lady.
And it all made me feel that much better about the night before.
The surreal nature of the banquet, a joint banquet for the varsity and junior varsity teams, came from a number of different angles, but it started from the outset. There we were, envelopes in hand containing prints of their portraits and CD's full of photographs, and there they were, dressed up (for the most part) and maybe with a girlfriend or date or something. Parents floated around aimlessly. Coach Williams thanked us for coming out again. Other parents thanked us. Sabel, the coaches 6 or 7 year old daughter, ran around. We briefly spoke to some of the players but it seemed dated.
"They don't know us without cameras," Elisabeth said.
"And we don't know them without uniforms," I replied.
It was an odd dynamic.
I began to wonder if that is simply what journalism is. You come in, report, the "story ends" and the people part. The subjects know they have performed their duty, and the observer has performed theirs. A connection remains in the form of the work, and that is what lasts. It felt true, but cast in a negative light it became something I wasn't comfortable with so I didn't let it stick. We sat and watched them maneuver in their personal space. It wasn't a baseball field.
In essence I knew that I overestimated the whole idea - it's what idealists do. In the grand scheme of things we spent hours of their lives with them. What is 10, 11, 12 games and a few practices to someone who is 19 years old? Not much. It's true that we spent more time with them than they did with us, editing photos, looking through takes, writing captions, things of that nature. We relived countless moments as though we were there again. It's not like they were looking at photos of us for hours on end. We were there for a relatively short amount of time. And suddenly everything felt far too temporary.
But the thought could be flipped, and it was. Temporary we were to them, yes. Absolutely. But within that short period of time we built something for them that lasts indefinitely. Your life has value, let us catch it for it's worth and then give it back. I began to wonder what I would have felt like had someone come to me and say "I think I'll photograph your doing what you love doing for a while, how does that sound?" and I arrived at and answer that it didn't sound so bad. Photography suddenly seemed like the great equalizer. You're as important as anyone else. Whether that means we're going to be in contact for the rest of our lives wasn't the point, we had something of yours, and you of ours, and they both meant something, something greater than ourselves. The great equalizer.
And so the strangeness of the banquet went from being what at first seemed like an intrusion of two people who felt much older than they were (though Elisabeth joked that some of the guys may of been older than she was) to one of the mystique of equality. That odd, sporadic banquet, hosted in a massive arena that was maybe 1/8th full, littered with rushed speeches, missed handshakes, quick dialogue, forced swagger walks, badly edited slideshows, and out-of-place music suddenly transcended its time and place. This could be anywhere, we thought. We could be in Houston, Plano, Laredo, Amarillo. The text would change, the players would change, the coaches, the parents, but the strangeness would remain. The strangeness of seeing something else, something different, and knowing full well that the pillars were universal.
Alec's mom Dianna said that she wanted to present us at the end of the banquet as a thank you for all that we did, and she asked if I wanted to say something, "You do the talking," Elisabeth said, so I sat and thought of what to say, knowing certainly that it didn't matter what I came up with because in the end I would forget it and have to go from the gut. And strange it was, us standing there on stage, Dianna giving us gas cards from Shell because UIL rules state that we cant just give things to a team without some kind of compensation before a slideshow containing some of our photos ran on the big projector screens. They were compressed wrong, but it wasn't that big of a deal. The night ended with us handing all of the players their envelopes, the keys to our connection, contented by the fact that in all honesty they had some "pretty badass shit" to keep with them for the rest of their lives, and that we had lessons to build on as we went forward. "Just think," Elisabeth mentioned as the senior slideshows played, small glimpses into the lives of these players as kids and young men, "at some point our photos might be part of something like that". I've always known that the power of photography is the transcendence of time, but I think everything that happened with those guys made me realize that if it is a gift you have - not the ability to take good pictures but more ability to care about them - then you damn well need to share it, because all that matters is making connections, and if it that happens because of a lens, a sensor or a plane of film, and a shutter, then so be it. Embrace it, use it, give it, and let it enfold you. The power of images, temporality realized as the moment remains. The power of images.
Anyway, it's 5:30 and I need to feed the dog.
"I was sitting back there thinking of what I would say when I came up here but I'm going to keep it short. After the last game of the season we were driving back to Austin and - I don't know which of us said it - we asked each other "What would it have been like had we picked another team?". What would it have been like had we gone and covered Westlake, or Austin High or one of those teams in the Austin area. Would the dynamics have been the same? Would the community have been as inviting..or the players as hilarious? Talking about Klaus' Cats or...telling Sabel to go "take a lap". We don't know. But I'm not so sure that is what's important. What is important is that we learned a great deal of watching you guys play, the way you competed, the way you interacted with each other, and the way everyone accepted us with such open arms, and at the end of the day we learned a lot more from you guys than you might realize, and we thank you for that."
To view photos of the 2012 Bastrop varsity baseball team, click here
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