Saturday, July 23, 2011

I Broke My Lens

One of the last photos I took with my now broken lens.

I broke my lens. I can't tell you how sad this makes me feel. Maybe sad isn't the right word. Devastated. Distraught. Horrified. Some combination of those plus some other twisted thoughts that haven't been consolidated enough to form a word.

The worst part? How my fucking stupidity led to it's demise. My wife and I had been out of town for the weekend, visiting my parents. It had been a really pleasant and relaxing weekend - something we both desperately needed - and we were taking the Greyhound bus home. We rolled into Kitchener and were let off at the bus station then waited patiently as the driver opened the side of the bus up to reveal a mass of luggage. Now, I'm not silly enough to put an expensive lens in the cargo hold of this big behemoth of a bus. That's just absurd. No, I instead had it in it's own case, it's handle gripped tightly in my hand, my camera bag strap wrapped securely across my shoulders. I don't mess around with this stuff - I keep it secure.

Finally, our turn came to grab our bags out of the bottom of the bus. My wife grabbed her small travel bag and I reached for my back pack. No big deal, right? You would think. But somehow my brain had a lapse, a miscalculation...I don't know, maybe a mental fart - it's hard to articulate as I still don't quite understand what happened.

Of course back packs have a reason for their name - after pulling my pack out of the bus, I obviously went to toss it on to my back. As I threw my arm into one of the straps I inadvertently (and inexplicably) let go of the lens case handle. At the time, not only did this seem like a normal thing to do, but it felt like it would be beyond stupid NOT to do this act. (This is usually the moment when Wile E. Coyote looks questioningly at the viewer as he hovers above an abyss and the cliff edge is juuust out of reach) However, that feeling only lasted a single moment and was immediately replaced with utter terror as I helplessly watched the lens case drop in slow-motion towards the ground. If this was a TV show, there probably would have been a baritone drawn out "Nooooooo!". But this was real life and instead I just stared, lips slowly parting, as the realization of this calamity dawned on the brain that had so epically failed me just a few synapse bursts before.

And with the "clunk" of the lens hitting the pavement, time immediately reverted back to its normal pace. The next few minutes felt like an out of body experience as I could see myself calmly reaching down, picking up the case, opening it, pulling out the lens and seeing the front lens element knocked out of place due to cracking in the casing that holds the element. I quickly put the lens back in it's case, expressionless, and headed to catch a cab. My poor wife looked at me with a pretty terrified look on her face, waiting for me to snap, get angry, or have any kind of a reaction at all. But I was too much in a comatose state to really process what had just happened.

Heading to our home in the cab, reality slowly started to sink in - it was a very depressing feeling. I felt numb, my mind felt blank, and my stomach felt slightly sick.

This happened about a month ago and I still really haven't dealt with it. The lens originally cost me about $850 after shipping and taxes and sure that's a big part of the sickness I feel around it. I probably can get it repaired and it'll run me around $350 which obviously flat out sucks. But more than anything, I'm just usually not careless with my stuff. I take care of things I own. I protect them. It's part of my identity. And the stupid way that I destroyed this lens feels like I destroyed a little bit of my identity along with it. I still haven't called up the manufacturer to find out how much this will be to repair. Sure $350 is a lot of money - a lot of money I really don't have. But I think I'm just avoiding the reality that this lens is broken and that my spirit is a little bit broken and it chips away the confidence I have in myself that I do things right and everyone else does things wrong. Maybe that's for the best. Obviously this is crazy and the lens is a simple object that can be replaced. But it certainly feels a lot worse than that fact. And I really don't want to deal with it.

3 comments:

  1. I love how you've read so much into it and it has chipped at your self-identity, too. Deep thoughts.

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  2. Thanks for the comment! Obviously, I'm quite upset about this. This post was a bit of a cathartic process. Hopefully now I can move on.

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  3. Wow - that sucks. If you've got a Canon, you can borrow mine anytime.

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