I remember
getting caught as a
teenage boy staring
at a girl sitting across the room from me in class
and her response:
“take a picture, it will last longer.”
(Gen X is nothing if not masters of sarcasm.)
In 1983
if I wanted a picture
or
something that would last longer
I’d need a little 110 camera
my grandmother gave me before a summer trip to the beach
and a couple of bucks for some film
and the patience to snap the other
twenty three photos on the roll…
so that I could
drop it off at the Fotomat
while Carl, the night manager
perused my choices of scenes I deemed
worthy of
wanting to last a lifetime.
It’s 40 years later and
we’ve all got Carl and the Fotomat in our pockets
and I’d imagine if some freckles
or pig tails catch a young boys eye now
that girl won’t say
“take a picture, it will last longer”
but
“Mr Jones, Stevie is taking pictures of me!”
and that’s a whole ‘nother level of cringe.
Looking at pictures this afternoon of
my mom and dad on their wedding day
and of my boys at the mall shortly before
telling Santa how cool a new Playstation would be
and of my daughters, trying to look cool and unenagaged
while on a family vacation
I realize that
pictures really do last longer.
That constant need in me to
capture a moment in such a way
that memory doesn’t fall victim to
age and
time
and
rose colored revision…
(or, worse, cluttering that memory with all those other twenty three pictures filling up that roll)
just the thought buries me in regret and melancholy.
How can I possibly take enough pictures that
last remotely long enough to
remind me of just how beautiful She is every single day?
Photographs of mountains in the distance
a chalky gray sky against a burnt umber sunset
or just mom and dad standing in a shot that invokes
a memory of my grandmother standing there,
her Kodak camera in hand,
telling them to smile…
they all tell a story and
fill in the blanks that
memory tries so hard to recreate.
I sometimes wonder if my wife
When,
for the 14th time this evening,
catches me
staring at her again
thinks to herself
“take a picture…”
I am, love.
I am.