On Photographs

I love those moments when something becomes crystal clear, the moment, or person or place is unquestionably real and present.  I suppose if I were a practicing Buddist I might experience them more, but I prefer serendipty.

I have never been a fan of posing for a photo, but I am less a fan of those candid shots where my mouth hangs open, or my eyes are half closed.  I have relented in recent years, to smiling for a camera, especially with my boys who some day will no longer be children and who will have lives of their own.  Sometimes, I see myself as an old woman looking back and wondering if any of it really happened.  Was any of it real?  I will have these photos to jog, if I am lucky, a struggling memory.

In photos I can see that which I miss when looking at an object, or in the mirror.  So often I am harsh of my enviornment, or my study of such.  A photo allows me an objective view that I would otherwise miss.  Perhaps this isn't living to some.  I am intersted in knowing other's perspective of this.

I have been looking through photos which belonged to my parents.  It is sad on the one hand because so many are not marked and so the history is lost.  But it is lovely on another because clearly, these people lived and breathed a life of their own.  There are bits of drama, play, romanticism.  I am here, because two people met during the war, fell in love, had a life, birthed life.

In these cold and wintery months, I hope to bring these photos to new life.  To look at them with a new perspective, to realize a life lived, and lives still ripe with opportunity because of them.