I did not think much of this picture at first, but the more I look at it the happier it makes me. This is the first picture I took with a Minolta 7000 Maxxum SLR film camera, a camera of historic provenance which reached me in a most unusual way. Mostly idle for the last decade the camera has traveled some, landing in Australia in the hands of a friend’s friend before arriving at my 181 last week.

I last saw this camera roughly 13 years ago. It was in Rochester. There was a train trip upstate and back to an event most would rather forget. Details of that trip have haunted me for years. Faded memories mercurially wash up at incoherent moments, bolting through my mind.

I took this picture only to see if the camera worked, and to see if I knew how to press the button. Success. And the picture itself makes me smile. Life is random, I say. Everything is random.