A photograph ... capturing a second of a moment in time and space. People frozen in time, forever.
Like this ...
 |
| Jeff and Karen in Paris |
Looking at this photograph we, the viewer, have no connection or attachment to it or the setting (some of you don't even have know who Jeff and Karen are). We look at this photograph and say "gorgeous setting" or "don't they look happy" or even "wow". But we are not there, we are not Jeff and Karen, and we are not the photographer. Jeff and Karen, however, will look back on this photograph someday in the future and will remember not only where they were but who they were with (Bernard and Tracey), what they were doing moments before this photograph was taken, where they went moments after. Maybe they will remember where they ate breakfast or lunch, maybe where they shopped, or where they ate dinner. This photograph, to Jeff and Karen, will bring back a memory of visual images and a flood of emotions. They are connected to this photograph, to this event, to this moment in time and space. We, we are merely outside observers that have knowledge ... you now having more knowledge after reading this paragraph than you may have had just looking at the picture. But knowledge isn't a cue to memory and knowledge does trigger emotional responses.
Now, imagine living your entire life as the unattached viewer of a photograph. Imagine you have no connection to not only the visual cues of photographs but also the visual and audible cues of video images. Imagine having no emotional correlation to anything that you are seeing or hearing. You would not, could not, ever be involved in a life that you have no relationship to.
That, THAT has been my life to this point in time. Snippets of a life that I have lived, a photograph of a moment forever frozen in time but not connected to me. Until this point in my life.
I imagine that most people can recall a moment in their life and remember what they were doing, where they were, and who they were with. I imagine that THIS is finally how things are becoming for me. Finally, after a lifetime of lack, I will have a full and complete picture. Not merely what I know, for knowing is different that memory, than remembering. I will have a complete picture of a life not only known about but also remembered.
It is a scary thing. It is an exciting thing. It is a miraculous thing. It is a first. Finally, it is all me.
 |
| Monica and Kim |
This is me and one of my very best friends on Rosedale Dr. in Las Cruces. It was taken on the way to high school, Mayfield High School. We had just stepped out of the house and her brother, Danny, snapped this picture of us as he was teasing us (an activity that he did often when he was home). We will come back to her house after school and listen to Donny Osmond and the Beatles White Album, drink sodas and munch on chips, and we will talk about the boys in high school, the girls in high school, and we will try our hardest to fit in even though we both know that we will not ever fit in.
I remember, not only this day but many days such as this at Kim's house.
Posts
