1.) I’m writing this from a flight to San Diego where I will eventually make my way to Binghamton, NY for my Grandmother’s 90th birthday party. Binghamton is where I was born roughly. It is where my parents fell in love, both sets of grandparents lived or a number of years, and was my home for a brief period as a child. Places like this are not locations, they are signifiers. History is not as important to personal remembrance as is the mythological representation of the past. You don’t visit a location you visit a complex web of narratives intertwined with deeply held meanings.
The house we lived in the longest, in Hickory, NC was purchased by a close friend’s family when my parents sold it. They would often invite me over to see it when I was in town but I could not do it. I was curious but couldn’t seem to go back. This is Hickory for me. When visiting I generally stick to my parents’ current house and rarely venture out. There is something strange and foreign about NC and I feel uncomfortable understanding the deep effect the location had on me. I feel that I am uncomfortable with feeling how much it means to me.
2.) A few months ago I and a few of my cousins were able to take a walk through our grandparents former house in Maryland. We all loved that house and remembered it as being larger than life. There was more then enough room for a dozen or so cousins to entertain ourselves for a week or two at a time. We loved every square inch of that house and the memories that were created. But it looked different 15 years later. The size was reasonable, the rooms had changed a bit, and the furniture was representative of its new owners. The physical structure of the house was there but the image had changed drastically. The image remembered did not match the house. To my mind it was connected to but was a whole new house entirely. It was as if I visited a caricature of their former dwelling.
3.) So much of my childhood is remembered through photographs. Do I remember those moments directly or build a probable story through what I’m told and what I know of my past? What does it mean to remember and keep those ideas active? I look at photographs from my childhood and don’t recognize the child I see. The child in the pictures seems like an image of my future children; a person I know closely but can’t picture.
The other day when I was falling asleep I thought about a situation in which I went back in time thirty years and knew no one. I would call my parents and ask for help and wondered what I would say in order to convince them it was me from another time. What would they say they saw me? Would they recognize their genes and mannerisms? Would I tell them of my childhood as though recounting something from the past that was their future?
This leads me to the simple conclusion that you can only be a spectator in the past.
4.) I’ve been spending a great deal of time taking pictures lately. Looking at the screen on my digital camera is an interesting experience. Facial expressions of those being photographed change dramatically every few seconds. When being photographed people have the potential to become rigid. The awkward smiling stance taken while the camera is flashing its initial rounds is more than a little bit interesting. The smile may represent a real feeling but it is not in itself real. It is a symbol which is wished to be recounted when viewed later. Why is a neutral pose not the generally excepted standard for being photographed? we are creating meaning through intentional gestures, but what does this mean for us to create these gestures when we and others are consciously aware that we are creating these gestures?