Will Juntunen

Review of Gilda's Club Rochester

I couldn't imagine spending a beautiful afternoon ...

I couldn't imagine spending a beautiful afternoon inside the windowless galleries of a museum. Even if landscape paintings from the Hudson River School hang one after another on the walls, better to be outside. I found myself close to the Rochester Contemporary Art Museum, a small space for a growing community, walking to the building through a light drizzle felt outdoorsy. Unfortunately, a crew inside had the next exhibition preparations underway, painting walls white once again. Closed for the duration, I had to make other plans.

I have the camera in tow. Right now, an officer in his blues watches an infant boy in a baby carriage while the boy's mom scoots off for an item forgotten at the car. The officer has one hand on the handle of a yellow taser and one hand on the push bar. I have on my lens cap still because of not only respect for the law but also that's an unknown baby. One more amusing picture makes the image makes the journal but not the reel.

After the failed visit to Rochester Contemporary, lunch time arrived and I visited Murphy's Law Irish Pub. "If something can go wrong, it will". Something can always go wrong, so adulting is a constant game of playing catch. However, I got a pour of Guinness and a simple hamburger without any complication and I took many boring pictures of the interior to post on Google Local. One of those absurd as a rhino or an elephant rides went by, a bar with ten stools and ten sets of peddles, all under a roof, all on wheels. I had moved onto the patio and so I snapped a picture. A woman in a bridesmaid gown asked me, "Are you just taking pictures of anything"? "I'm out photowalking, practicing street photography. The pub peddlers were pretty much yelling woo hoo, so why not. Half the art of street photography is to know when it is okay to take a photo and when it's not". She had stepped out for a smoke and seemed talkative. "What is the story of the wedding", I asked. "What is the story of the wedding? What do you mean"? "Every wedding is a love story", I answered. The best friend of her husband had finally married his long time girlfriend after a long long courtship. Her husband, she confided, had passed of cancer a time ago. She didn't say. She had stepped out to smoke and contemplate. "Oh, I am sorry. That cancer is a, well you get it". "Oh, yeah, I get it". It's not the first time I've had the conversation with a woman who had lost her partner. It happens all too often. I didn't mention my surgery of last January. I did say, "A few blocks from here a Gilda's House awaits. I once walked into the Gilda's House in Grand Rapids and said, 'I just want to think about cancer' to the receptionist. She asked. And that was my answer. A therapist found me writing in the library and wanted to know if I wanted to talk. I didn't, but I stayed for dinner". "Where is it", she asked. Right around the block. It has a red door". Her friend came out of Murphy's. "Did you just wander off"? I smiled, wished her a lovely afternoon. She smiled and said in parting, "Thanks for the little chit chat".

I called a ride share for a lift to the lilac festival. A thousand lilac bushes must be in bloom.