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THE DECISIVE MOMENT The decisive moment, it is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organization of forms, which gives that event its proper expression. On a glorious June evening after the retrospective exhibit of Cartier-Bresson's world-spanning art, I strolled into Central Park, and left the path to climb the rock. Below me, a woman approached the arch under a bridge trailing two leashes connected to twin beagles. The heightened perspective, the swirls of motion made a picture Henri might have taken. Early summer light, bright but not blinding, warm but not hot. It went through me, tinting my mind like wine through water. My vision created frames as I walked, keeping violent emotions at bay, where what seems threatening can be studied from an inner distance, like the way one walks around a sculpture to view it from all angles. No matter how tenuous I think are the ties that bind me to the miserable past, I am not deceived; heartstrings can be played on, and twist and tighten at a moment's notice, like a devilish phylactery strangling the life out of me. Surprising the pain that endures or perhaps not strange— enmeshed in desperate, unequal trials I had no chance of winning, I buried my feelings so deep I couldn't find them and turned my heart to stone, that slowly is softening. |