This post had me writing late last night, unable to sleep, beats pumping through the pathways in my body. It feels like these little electrical pulses that radiate through to my hands, at the same time making me feel strangely powerful and also concerned about my circulation. The hum? Has anyone else felt that? An energy moving that has to be explored and it won’t let you rest until it manifests. This gentle ebbing of something needing to break the shoreline, crash into the rocks and ignite upward.
I’ve been deep diving into vintage photographs recently, mainly due to discovering the trove of vintage National Geographic archives on Pinterest. Something I grew up on, the rare treat my parents actually bought and the stacks that lined our shelves, certain issues dog-eared, coffee stained, what the pages contained setting free imagination, yearning for foreign lands and strangers, exotic cultures and customs. But there’s also something else to the photographs, it stirs something, breathes something..
Pictures mean a lot to me, yet while my friends have been able to grind past the barrier, I’ve rarely let lovers or boyfriends take pictures of me. Like, regular pictures, no nudes or sexy-ness (sorry if that’s disappointing). It’s happened occasionally but even now I cringe thinking they have those memories on their phone (or maybe not and I’m being super vain). I keep trying to dig into the meaning and background of this and don’t worry, my dear therapist who is probably reading this, we’ll be talking about this as soon as we finish EMDR on that other thing. I choke, freeze, turn into the most awkward object in the room and feel like something is being stolen from me, without permission. Maybe it’s because I knew that we would never last or it was a passing fling, maybe it’s because there are legit only 5 photographers in the world that I actually trust to take my picture. But it makes for the innocent, relaxed, uncensured moments to be few and far between. The stolen moments where we aren’t faced with the split second decision to be real or a manicured version of ourselves.
It’s so strange. There is Native American folklore about pictures that also share similar thoughts with mirrors. Certain tribes (specifically from the Great Plains) believed that to let your picture be taken, that meant your soul was stolen by the camera and it disrespected the spirit world. So they were terrified when the white settlers started rolling through with cameras and wanting to document. Eventually though, they came to view photographs as cherished possessions and ancestral heritage.
It does, though, capture a part of your spirit, and soul. It captures you in a moment either of vulnerability, of happiness, perhaps caught off-guard and unprepared or inviting because you want your image captured.
But I see these pictures and they make my heart ache. I want to know everything, I want to be there with them, I want to know what they were talking about, loving, hating, worrying, what stirred them with passion and what left them wondering. Because, inevitably, most of these humans captured are either gone from this world or older and in a phase of life that is in a different realm. And, you never know. You never know the last time you are going to see someone or experience something with them.
And I am living in the era of the magazine, I’m in the era of vacations with friends and a body that usually cooperates (minus past injuries but hey, can still ski, barely). Pre Covid, hopefully soon somewhat post, the dinner parties and birthdays and days at the lake, the nights at the bowling alley, the bars we haunted and the land we ran across to the lakes we skinny dipped in. They were living for the time and memories, not the picture, not the gram. It happened to be captured, it wasn’t captured to say that it happened. They didn’t take the picture and then stop what they were doing to post about it, something that I’m quite guilty of doing, although I try to be cognizant of those kinds of actions.
What happened to living and not simply existing, existing to post or show a perfect life. To not immediately looking at the angle of my thighs or the bend in my arm, correcting immediately to take five more pictures and choosing one minutely distinct from the rest. I want to talk about the things that matter and don’t, to talk about memories of past trips and upcoming events, theories of the universe and stories of the sky. What is inspiring and dumbfounding, boils our blood and stupefies us in wonder. To be so curious about something to go there without a perfectly planned trip or itinerary and least of all, cell service. When did we, when did I, stop living like that.
But, I do want the pictures to remember it. To recall the times when my body was young and nubile, my cares were less and laughter came easy. When the get-up-and-go was simple and awe was easily attainable. When my worn, wrinkled and sun leathered hands pick up the picture of my girlfriends and I, flashes of the dance parties, awkward encounters, beautiful meals, shared moments and the stunning joy of youth plays through my mind like an old movie reel.
I’ll get lost in a daze, the summer nights that felt endless, cigar smoke blowing, laughter ringing, drinks sloshing, and the conversation flowing like honey. Closing my eyes to the sound of my friends voices, both comforting and devastating. That velvet humidity slipping over my skin like a dip into water, the honeysuckle riding the occasional breeze like a perfume accompanying Mother Nature gliding through the door.
I don’t really have pictures from those nights, or many nights and days. I do want them though. Even just one. One picture. To fill the albums my daughters and granddaughters will comb through one day, looking for evidence that I was once like them. I will slyly tell them stories of past lives, as they get older adding more details and audaciousness, maybe even causing a gasp or two. I’ll smile because for the boundaries and barriers, the things and rules that I held onto for too long, thank god there were times I just didn’t.
Let your spirit be stolen, just for a moment. Then let it free again.
