“Photographs are for people who can’t remember” George Clooney’s character in his latest movie Up in the Air says this to a room full of traveling entrepreneurs. It’s a quote that has haunted me for the last two weeks since I saw the film. Here I am, I have just taken up photography and have found myself wondering “is this true?” Am I weak minded for opting for an image over my aging memory?
A few weeks prior to seeing this movie, all of the images I had digitally captured since 2005 were lost. They were moved to a hard drive that by complete accident went crashing to the floor. “The crash of ’09″ – as I have come to refer to this event - rendered the drive useless. My images are gone. Perhaps the most fun years of my life – POOF! – left to a memory in my mind’s eye. At the realization that it will cost a couple grand to recover the images, I have cried tears – real tears - of sorrow for their loss. I will someday pay the big bucks to retrieve them. For now, I try to remember what images were there and scramble to find those left in my email attachments. My floral arrangements for parties. Fun times on the Board of Directors with the Junior League. My amazing trip with The Angler to San Ysidro Ranch. Finley Dog dressed in his feather boa. Sadie Francis when she was a 2 pound, 5 week old puppy no wider than the hard wood plank of our floor. Me sitting atop a piano at a bar on my 32nd birthday. (Ok -well, my mom is at least happy the last one is gone)
The Angler & Moi, Ojai Valley, California 2008
Last week I was asked to share my “story” to a group of women in a local bible study. As I hand wrote the 10 pages of my life, I realized that my story is made up of landmarks that at the time were deemed heartbreaks. Some, to this day, bring that lump to my throat and tears to my eyes to remember. However, its the hard times that have shaped me the most. Cut open a tree and you will see the life rings. The thickest rings – the years of most growth – are the years with the heaviest rains. And so it is with us. If we allow it, we grow the most when the hard rains fall. As I told my story from milestone to milestone, it was the heartaches, and not so much the victories, that have strengthened my faith. This is where it dawned on me exactly why my pictures on that hard drive mean so much. We remember the bad times. We remember them vividly: the tears, the hurt, the pain, the loss. In an instant our hearts can feel the heaviness again. We don’t need those pictures.
grand ol' maple in my front yard
Now, open your photo album – what do you see? The good times. There they are: the laughs, the celebrations, the cheers, the victories. So, in our storybook of life, we have our dark days of hurt brightened by images of joy. So yes, George Clooney, photographs are for people who sometimes can’t remember. For those of us who find ourselves with the “January blues”, the “June gloom” or any day in between. Pictures remind us we are happy and blessed. We have had our share of reasons to celebrate. We laugh.
Most of all, staring at those smiles around us, we are reminded… we are loved and have loved.
Grace and Peace,
Boots
by boots
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