My en suite bathroom light goes on and off at will, and this week it’s having an off week. I now know how to shower, put on makeup, and other bathroom essentials by the mere light of the flashlight app on my iPhone. Yay technology. The timing is extra special, since we have two-week houseguests and only so many showers to go around. And, well, we just finished watching The Haunting of Hill House. My oven also decided to up and die on me and my dryer doesn’t seem to be drying any of the laundry (YOU HAD ONE JOB SERIOUSLY) and my cleaning lady snagged herself a full-time personal support worker job.

But Aubrey the Appliance Guy came over this week. Twice. To save the day. In addition to fixing my oven (bless!) and giving me a free pen, he started talking to me about photography. He pulled out his phone and showed me photos he took at a traveling exhibit at one of my most favorite places in the city to shoot. We talked about lenses and flashes and I told him a story that I haven’t told anyone because I actually am still having mini panic attacks every time I think about it. I had just finished a really great shoot with a really great family. I popped my memory card into my card reader to upload the photos. I don’t usually start the editing process right away, but I always, always upload the photos to make sure they are safe and settled in Lightroom. NOT WORKING.

{An unsavoury} part of my personality is that when things don’t work the way I want them to, my first instinct is to panic before my brain can go into problem-solving mode. (You should see me when I try to print.) I took the card out of the reader and popped it back in. I unplugged the reader and plugged it in again. I tried switching to my desktop. I blew on the inside of the card reader like it was Super Mario Brothers from my original Nintendo. Nothing. I put the card back into my camera…and my camera used a word that no photographer ever, ever, ever wants to see: CORRUPT.

I then did what any normal person would do — I posted about it on my instagram stories.

Some incredibly kind and patient people offered some tips. I took it to Henry’s and settled in for the afternoon of drooling over lenses I can’t afford and looking into off camera lighting because I’m always looking to improve my cameras tendency to lean yellow any time it shoots indoors. 3.5 hours later the most incredible, incredible man from Henry’s gave me every single one of my files off of my card. Every single one. And he charged me ZERO DOLLARS. I swear.

Aubrey nodded his head and told me that he felt panic for me the entire time I was telling the story. “It’s the photographer’s fear, right,” he said, “That no one will get to see your creation.”

I actually hadn’t even worried about that. As a pleaser, I worried only about my clients. I worried about telling this family that the photos that they stressed through  were gone. Like Keyser Soze, they vanished. Without a trace. {I would normally put a photo up from the movie, where Verbal Kint makes that disappearing gesture, but I don’t really want to give the actor who plays him any face time in this space.}

But Aubrey’s words really stuck with me.

But in a different way.

I wondered how many times he was in an out of my house, saving my appliances from near disaster, but all this time I had no idea that he, like me, creates something from nothing with a little black box that a company named Canon created.

Probably a dozen.

No one will get to see his creation. 

I never knew he liked to photograph at Edward’s Gardens. I never knew he loved macro. I never knew that he takes the most incredible photos.

I wonder now what everyone else is hiding. What creations no one is getting to see.

But I sure as heck am going to find out.