I wrote a Facebook update today that was clearly an appeal for approval, agreement, support for a decision I don't want to make. It was a crude and blatant cry for help - from the friends, sort of friends and semi strangers that make up my FB alumni. I want an overwhelming cacophany of voices to make the decison for me. They can't. I know that. The majority will tell me that I am making the right choice, that I will 'do the right thing'. But obviously - this is not about Oscar or whether to kill him at 1.30 today in the meadow of the park he and I love so much. This is not just about a dog. This is about me and whether I can put off this pain as long as possible. Because the last three years have seen a deconstruction of many of the walls I carefully put together over 50 plus years on this earth, and I am literally terrified that I don't have the defenses left to cope with a major hurt.
It also is about my ability to get back to some sort of photographic creative point. Oscar has been my muse since September 2005 when he came to live with me after his older 'sister' Zelda chomped a piece of his ear and Aida agreed he would do better with my crew. Truth is I have photographed Oscar more than anyone or thing in my entire life.
Photograph: Jill Posener © All Rights Reserved
Even Susie, who I spent 12 photography filled years with. The camera loves Oscar every bit as much as it loved Susie, whose sultry image is the last photo in 'Nothing But The Girl' (which incidentally is the last major book project I created). My terror of trying to pick up a camera and take the pictures I am yearning to take is a bit like getting back on a bike after being sideswiped by a car. I have lost my confidence along with my bravado. Oscar never asked for approval of the images. His crooked nose, his chunky legs with their folds of skin, his deep brown pools of eyes, and his ever-whitening visage never seemed to bother him. I don't feel physically sick when taking his portrait like I did the last time I ever went out on a photo shoot for a magazine - to photograph Ally Sheedy - and fucked it up. Completely.
She and I talked about dogs.
Photograph: Jill Posener © All Rights Reserved
And I don't seem to have a problem using this blog to help untie the knottiest internal ramblings of my troubled self. Clearly, I either have major boundary issues (lack of them) or else I believe as I always did - that the personal is political. That if we climb out of our constructed private zones we can smash the walls and bridge the gulfs between us. Private lives are much overrated. I am taken aback over and over how little we actually know about even the people close to us. How the public face bears little resemblance to the private agony. And I don't handle it well.
But then, there is much I don't handle well.
When I fell apart - I mean really fell apart 3 and a bit years ago the seams had been unraveling for a long while but it was the killing of two dogs that kicked me through the doors and into the descent to a basement of unimaginable darkness and distress. But it was a place I recognized well from the terrors of my early life. I've managed over the years to get back up the stairs and slam the door on the basement. To get out of the cellar this time, I had to deconstruct the walls from inside. I learned a whole bunch of things. Those of you who've been kind enough to follow along know a lot - but the act of accepting is a long way from being over, done, complete.
To be at war within oneself - whatever the reason - and for me it stems from the most fundamental of states of being - my gender - one has to find a zone in which one can survive, the place you do the things you have to do to survive. My emotional deadzone has done me well - I have retreated there to be rageful, to be angered by everything, to be cruel, to euthanise animals, to break away from someone, to take on the injustices of the world. But now that it has ceased to be a place of refuge, it is a place of terror - so unspeakably cold, as if I'm in a plastic tunnel and sounds are muffled, images muted and people who are trying to reach me are beyond my reach. And I'm scared that Oscar's death will push me down there. Being out of the depression for some time now, I really do not wanna go back.
I love being close and intimate with my friends and family, I am one of the most social and outgoing people I know (though please don't hug me), but I don't trust myself with intimacy of any other kind, be it romantic love or death. So, it's not about a dog. It's about trusting myself - which I have probably never been able to really do....
....You CAN - Oscar always has.
Enjoy the walk lil guy- The Harebrains
Posted by: jan ferry | June 16, 2009 at 12:43 AM