over here, shall we?” I look at the chair farthest from Hendrix and his perfect everything. “Tell us about yourself.”
“Kaila Morrison” seems glad to take the baton. She gives us all a spiel about her photographic aspirations and her career ambitions as well as providing us with a not-so-brief resume. It is an advanced course, after all. No one was allowed to enroll without submitting a portfolio, all screened by the London Academy of Art, thankfully, or not so thankfully since I would have been able to avoid the Hendrix disaster had I been involved with curating submissions.
What would I have done if I’d come across his registration form? Would I have tossed it out immediately or reached out to him or...what? I dwell on that when I should be more attentive to Kaila.
Then, instead of listening to the next student as he speaks, I berate myself for my preoccupation which doesn’t get any better by the time the third student is introducing herself.
Needless to say, by the time we’ve reached Hendrix, I’ve learned very little about the people I’m meant to be teaching, and, worse, I’m no better prepared to actually teach them.
When he speaks, though, I’m completely present. Time slows down and the room is suddenly quieter as it disappears into background, and all there is to capture my focus is him.
“I thought it was time to widen my scope of the art,” he says, and it feels like he’s talking only to me. “I know how to capture an animal as it moves stealthily in its habitat. I know how to adjust my camera for all versions of natural light. I don’t have a single clue where to begin when it comes to photographing a person in a studio.”
I haven’t commented on anyone’s introduction thus far, and yet I’m compelled to pry now. “And you’ve suddenly been met with an abundance of requests to shoot portraits? Don’t tell me National Geographic isn’t giving you work anymore.”
“Uh, no,” he laughs. “National Geographic and I are fine.” His smile fades from his lips, but it lingers in his eyes. “There’s more to life than just the job, though. This whole life of mine began for me with snapping pictures of things I liked to look at. Then it became something else, and I love it. I do. But it’s been a long time since there’s been any passion.”
“And you think that you’ll find that here?” My tone verges on hostile, but it is what it is. The words are already out, and there’s nothing I can do to flower the message after the fact.
“Yes,” he says, and my next breath comes easier for some unknown reason. “Yes, I think I will.”
I go through the rest of the class in a daze. I manage to stick to my talking points, for the most part, besides the random time I sidetrack to recommend Nightsky, my favorite bar that happens to be in the vicinity of the Academy campus with decent priced top-shelf drinks and live music and an ambiance that draws me in no matter how terrible the cover bands are. How I got talking about London nightlife is beyond me except that I’m sure it has to do with Hendrix and memories of that dive of a bar that we ended up in that evening last September in France, both of us content because of the company despite the dreadful service.
Somehow I find my way back to the planned topic after that meandering, and somehow I manage to teach something, though I’m only sure that I make sense because of the nods of understanding coming from my pupils. Twelve of them, anyway. Twelve rapt students who give me their full attention, which I’m certain I don’t deserve.
I can’t bring myself to give Hendrix any attention. It’s easier to stumble on, pretending that he’s not in the picture.
Ignoring him physically doesn’t work to draw my mind from him, however. As I lecture about the basics of portraiture and the art of creating concepts, I’m thinking about him and why he’s here and what he said and what it could mean. We did have a passionate night together. Not just in the bedroom, but definitely in the bedroom, where he made me feel for one glorious encounter like my body wasn’t a hindrance or a prison for my soul but instead that it was part of my soul. There, in the dark, with his mouth at my ear and his hands on