The found photo album hovers in the back of my mind. It is a nagging thought. While doing yoga this morning, I spotted it hanging over the edge of my desk under a pile of curriculum books, calling to me. Reminding it is sitting there waiting for me to think about it.
The red leather cover cracks open to reveal a photo of a woman on the beach in Camden, Massachusetts. I know it is Camden because careful red pen indicates this just above the photo. She is smiling, with beautiful dimples, hair tousled by the beach breeze. In her hands is what appears to be a fake lobster, or at least a dead one due to the proximity of his claws to her hands. She is wearing a camel colored turtleneck, and blue jeans. The beach looks unremarkable behind her.
Yellowed scotch tape at the bottom of the page indicates someone has tried to hold these photos in place as the plastic sheeting began to fail. The first three pages have torn and their pictures slip easily out. The rest of the album is in good shape, despite its age.
As I study the book, a picture slips loose to reveal more information, "Maine & the Northeast Summer 1984." When I showed Dan the photo of the lobster he said it looked like Maine. I corrected him. Massachusetts, but lo, I was possibly wrong. Page one is of both Maine and Massachusetts, and the entire Northeast.
The truth is this album is unremarkable. Middle aged in the photos, these people must be elderly now. This album holds one year of their lives, in which they traveled quite a bit. There are a few pictures of a baby and a small boy. They do not appear to be the children of our main character or her partner. There are a few photos of elderly people, and friends. There are photos of camping, hiking, swimming, and hang gliding. Our friends were adventurous.
The final photo in the album parallels the first: our main character stands on another beach. This one is in Dana Point. Her hair is again tousled, framing her pretty, dimpled face. The sea rolls in behind her on a much prettier beach.
This item has clearly been cared for, yet it was discarded in the local tiny library.
I do know a little about old albums from lives before. Photos are complicated. Sometimes they tell a story we aren't ready to read. I look back at the photos of my first marriage and see things in those photos that make my heart ache. Things that should have been so obvious, and are clearly captured on the film and the image before me, but I was blind to for so many years. I still feel physical pain looking at those photos tucked carefully up in my closet for safe-keeping.
When my children were first born, I had little disposable cameras to take their photos on. Money was tight, so each picture was precious. Developing photos was a rare treat for me, and the images were priceless - are priceless to me. I spent hours carefully assembling the photos in order and labeling them so that we would remember the tiny moments, and the big ones, too. Photo albums are a labor of love. they are a time capsule of relationships. And yet, through another person's eyes, they are unremarkable. Would you see how much I love my kids if you opened up their albums? Would they stand out as remarkable to the objective viewer? Of course not. Yet, that love is remarkable; it has shaped me throughout my entire adult life. Would it be clear how much I love Nic if you opened the photos I have of us? Or would we be just like this couple, middle aged, traveling, unremarkable? And yet, it is anything but unremarkable.
I feel nostalgic holding this time capsule, almost like I have a responsibility to it. What that is has not been made clear. I would much prefer some proper haunting from ghosts of the past than to hold their discarded love in my hands and wonder what happened to them. When we die our photos are thrown out, or left in the community library, and they are forgotten as if they never mattered at all. Our travels, and family, our passionate love affairs - all just sheets of yellowing paper to be cast aside.
When I think about the purpose of life, my life and those around me, I realize that I will not be more remembered or known than my great-grandparents. Maybe little facts about me might trickle down to future generations, but I hope my legacy will be one of love. If we love well, we give that to our children, and they have a great source of love to draw on for their children, and so on, and so forth. We hear about generational trauma, and generational wealth. We don't often hear of generational love. That's what I am shooting for: a legacy of love. A love that is beyond red photo albums; a love that feeds generations - a love traceable to me.
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