memory machine
When I got my first digital camera I took pictures of everything – our armchair, in several different lightings, colour, black and white, and sepia. The view out our back window, in daytime, night time, summer and winter. We have hundreds of pictures of each other and of ourselves together in those days just before we got married and left Canada. These days I dodge the camera and seem to almost pathologically avoid taking pictures. We just got back from a beautiful week-long holiday/work trip and I realized that I took a grand total of about 10 photos. I don’t know if Tom took more, but I don’t think so. Why did I take hundreds and thousands of photos a few years ago and hardly any now, in these first few years of Bea’s life that she really won’t remember that well?
I think part of my reluctance to take tons of photos is that it seems to distract me from actually living the life I am in during the moment. When I do take pictures I dally behind Tom and Bea, I have to run and catch up as they continue along the hike. People get annoyed if you’ve always got a camera in their face… I know I do. But secretly I wish I had more good photos of myself. You know the ones, those creative arty shots that make great avatars and facebook brag photos. So why not bring out the camera and mug for it a bit more? Eh, I just can’t be bothered.
Maybe it’s just laziness, which is why I feel like I need to get to the bottom of this laissez-faire attitude. It seems that part of the responsibility of being a parent is to document the trajectory from baby to teenager, so that you can hand your kids a fully complete photo album when they leave home. Don’t forget who you were, it says. Don’t forget the fun things we did, the interesting places we went. Remember the faces of your relatives and friends for years to come. All that is worthwhile, I think.
Worse than not taking pictures is not even writing about our adventures. Sigh. For the record, we had a wonderful time visiting tom’s mom. Everyone at the monastery was friendly and sincere. The weather was like a little taste of summer, all balmy sunny days beside the lake with the geese honking every morning and evening. Two baby goats were born first thing on Friday morning, and Beatrice and Tom got to see them an hour after they arrived. The little girl goat had to be kept from her mother so she wouldn’t get an illness that her mom was carrying, so she was carried in church and around the house wrapped up in blankets and fed from bottles. We shared the guest house with a very jolly old priest who regaled us with stories from his long and varied life as a music teacher, technical writer, priest and winemaker. Bea slept through the whole return flight, curled up on the seat between us with her little bear held tight and eyes dreaming.
