Kindle Notes & Highlights
a few shots of the body, however she thought best, but only in black and white. If she could load the camera with Tri-X 400, all the better: not too grainy, and sensitive enough for a poorly lit space. The one thing was, he said, it was pressing. She would need to arrive early. Before the funeral. The very next morning.
the day they put the logo on the door. That studio was their future, their life project. Now it’s their past.
Mortuary photography is the drawing into the present of the last image—an attempt to capture what is on the verge of being erased.
The eyes of the dead are wide-open. Those photos are the most unsettling, at least to her.
photography captured things not visible to the eye.
That was the phrase: Remember her as she was.
the waiting, the long minutes that she thinks sometimes gave birth to that dark absence that steals her breath.
It took several people to move a body, and at times they had to break bones to get it into the right position.
He was the professional, she was an aficionado who went around with him and enjoyed his work. That was how things had to be. She had to stand aside and let him show off. Perhaps that’s why she wound up exiled to the studio, the way she’d once been exiled to the kitchen at the bar. ID photos, developing, indoor work. She never thought of it as giving something up. It was a choice. But one that slowly killed her enthusiasm and stunted her gaze, and she withdrew, as though she never wanted to leave there again, or didn’t know how. Until now. Until recently.
But she knew all he wanted was to escape. Flee the dark house, the television cranked up to ten, the locks on the doors, the adult diapers piled up in the bathroom, the contagious stench of old age.
A"hole but can't really blame him.
She can’t help empathizing with solitude. But she’s already suffered for her own people. They were her responsibility. He isn’t, and she can’t shoulder the burden, she thinks as she drives back home and tries to rebuild her armor. She’s had enough. Clemente isn’t her problem. He shouldn’t be.
But he will be your problem eventually
She feels less, but feeling less means not feeling pain.
Love this
Today she looks at them again. She types hidden mothers and watches them try to disappear before her eyes. Women hidden, women trying to stand aside. Invisible mothers. Camouflaged, staged. And she can’t help but think how, for a long time, she disappeared too. Taking care of Iván, taking care of his father as if he were her son. Out of frame, out of sight. Keeping company, taking care, holding out. Sustaining others, with no one sustaining her.
