Archive for January 23rd, 2025
Wearing the street cassock
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
During a painful and somewhat humbling scuttle around an industrial zone in Pittsburgh, I can happily report to you that I was wearing my filthy black raincoat again. The street cassock hasn’t been in heavy usage, for obvious reasons, and since I missed autumn (its season) entirely due to the broken ankle, when I started regularly leaving the house again I was wearing a Carhartt winter coat. It’s a big puffy warm thing, the Carhartt, with a hood and warm lining. Lots of secure pockets. Does the job.
I’ve missed the street cassock though. The puffy winter coat makes taking my big knap sack style camera bag on and off difficult and clumsy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While crossing under the Liberty Bridge, the ankle situation really began to degrade. My strides shortened, and by the time I shot the image above, I was walking like a penguin. The atrophy I’ve mentioned, in the upper thighs and hips, was manifesting itself. Lactic acid was everywhere in the roadway interface, from toes to butt. It’s going to take quite a while, I’m afraid, to get back to where I was and right now I’m stuck with being like most of you humans. Weak, unfocused, unable to move.
Cowed by distance, and hobbled by infirmity, I used to be strong.
This situation angered me, which was good as I needed the adrenaline to do my final push for the day. Remember, under normal circumstances I walk 20-30 miles a week, usually at an average speed of 2.5-3 mph.
On this day, a half mile walk took me an hour. Ugg.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I actually had to sit down and rest for a few minutes.
Me!
‘It’s all downhill from here,’ I reminded myself. A long block away sat that brewery by the railroad tracks which I frequent. I had missed getting shots of two trains during this walk, which annoyed the hell out of me, since under normal circumstance I’d have easily crossed the distance and gotten those shots.
Back tomorrow.
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