Sadness

Flicks 'n ' Pics closed. Yesterday was the last day they were open. In the morning before they opened I stopped and photographed the familiar neon sign, the notices scotch-taped to the door. I was shooting into the sun. Maybe that's why my eyes watered. I kneeled to get a different angle. I thought about an altar, a prayer.

I wrote a message on a card from a museum in France. In the evening on the last day I went in and there was nothing apparently different. The neighbors were perusing the shelves. The shelves had space where the movies were checked out, expecting to be returned. The owner was there.

So many memories. I walked through the foreign film section. I looked at the French films. I walked through the kiddie room. I looked at the shelves from which, with my little daughter, I had rented so many VHS movies, so many Disney movies, so many unusual children's movies, like the Russian folk tale, "The Magic Pony." So many times, stopping by on the way home to rent a movie for a rainy winter Saturday night. So many movies rented for my French classes and the mulitcultural class I taught.

I was too sad to stay.