Tuesday, December 18, 2018

Old Photos

Once in a blue moon I will open a box of old photographs stored on the top shelf of the clothes closet. 
It is awkward to get down and it is stuffed with packets of 4x6’s from the years before computers and it is at times fun and bittersweet to see what I was up to.  I am surprised that my hair was raven colored and I was much thinner than I am now.  There are trips to the mountain to visit friends who had a wonderful cabin in an old mining town, trips to California to go on painting encounters and wonderful sojourns to Italy, France, Africa and Asia.

There I am standing in front of a temple in the sweltering heat of Thailand, then a shot of the most handsome male I ever met, a 70- foot reclining gold deity all stretched out for one and all to admire.  There I am on a small Vietnamese boat on Hai Phong Bay hardly aware that there was an awful war with these people not too long ago.  

I am hiking with our guide in the desert highlands of Madagascar and I remember that I suffered heat stroke that evening.  I didn’t have water on the hike into Monkey Valley and I was so thirsty that I drank unfiltered water from a stream. I was exhausted, no appetite, nauseated, and vomited outside the dining hall that evening.

There are photos of friends long gone, others who just drifted away with job changes and moving to another state, photos of people who betrayed their loyalty and I get a sinking feeling when at I look at them.

I think maybe it is best not to disturb that box filled with history. Should I dump it or just let it molder away in darkness?

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