Some of my favorite things are the family pictures I've collected over the years. Now, with digital cameras, cameras on our computers, there seems to be so many pictures of all of us. But pictures of my Nana in her 20s, well, there aren't many of those. I treasure those old pictures of my grandparents when they were young. Pictures of my parents as children. Pictures of my siblings as little kids with my parents looking so very young.
As much as I treasure the pictures of the people I love, when I take pictures, I don't usually take pictures of people. I'm not sure why, but maybe it's that I just can't capture what I see in that person. A photo is such a small part of that person. It's just a fraction, just one angle. Or (she says selfishly) maybe it's that there isn't a picture of me that I really love.
As I grow older I am more aware that this version of myself won't be here forever. Yes, time keeps moving forward. I hate getting my picture taken, but I know that this is the youngest I will ever be.
I have very few pictures of the former Mr. HP. He has almost none of me. I'm not sure why, but this is something that really hurts me. I always get a bit choked up when I think about this. I suppose the idea of all those years represented by a small stack of pictures. That it all can be so easily set aside. (Now, looking at the lyrics to the song that supplied this post's title, I note the phrase "To prove they love each other, a long ago.") I'm not sure that more pictures would change anything. But, for now, it might make me feel a little better. A little more a part of history.
1 comment:
Maybe to make you feel better, but these days I am armed only with mixed blessings (damned kids took the pure ones and frittered 'em away): When B was scanning old old family photos we discovered in her Mom's estate, unremarked for 40 years or more, there were many pics of her Dad and Mom with folks.
Unlabeled.
Unrecognized.
Finally we found a few inscriptions on the backs. Aha. Their previous husbands and wives. And we have no idea who those people are, or what became of them....
History is full of holes. The glass-half-full approach is: Think of them as opportunities for renovation, just like the stories we imagine our memories represent. They get better with time, because those gaps get smoothed over and filled in with plastic wood, or a nice decoration, or a better out-of-order memory of the world.
Not obstacles, but opportunities.
Post a Comment