Living Unrecollected
An enveloping evening chill mellowed what was an uncomfortably warm afternoon. Stirred awake by the shift in temperature, I found myself amongst countless blades of golden light, surrounded by an intoxicating aura; the hue of which resembled a pomegranate about to burst. I sat there cross-legged, paralyzed in wonder and admiration; my eyes enraptured as the shifting breeze shivered the leaves of the Japanese maple overhead, scattering and gathering threads of the fleeting Summer afternoon into golden pools between the blades of grass. Brushing the crusted salt from the edges of my eyes, I faced skyward, a shade of blue not in sight. Instead, these pomegranate leaves and splotches of white gold filled the usual emptiness; and for the first time in a long while, a sense of warmth and a smile bubbled up to the edge of my lips.
It was only after bathing in this enveloping sea of blood-glow that even the thought of taking a picture crossed my mind. I quickly screwdriver-twisted my wrist, phone in hand to quickly snap a picture or two of my surroundings. But moments later, my thumb was already hovering over the trashcan, dismissive and dismayed, the grin that was once there no longer in sight.
A beautiful sight appears: a glimmering moment where state of mind and environment converge; and the compulsion to snap a picture comes yearning. If nothing more than to capture that stimulating, thought-provoking moment, digitizing and compressing it into a record of cherished memories; the instinct to archive and collect pieces of our lives comes naturally. To share it with friends, to hear echoed calls of appreciation and a torrent of excitement and inquiry. To stumble upon it, years later, fingering the crest of a mouse-wheel as it tumbles, puzzle-pieced amongst other fragments of the past. These are ways in which I imagine others seek to systematically collate their lives. But I for one, don't seem to want such a thing at all.
Perhaps I’m just a shit photographer. Any semblance of skill when handling a camera is unquestionably lacking. But perhaps, there is a deeper, fundamental root of dysfunction behind this awkward facade of ineptitude. And I myself see it as dysfunction: who wouldn't want real tangible proof of their own existence, of the things they've experienced and shared and seen? It isn't just an incapability to frame a photo to satisfy my own notion of aesthetic taste. Instead, every attempt made, every photo taken, lacks a quality of life to it: an ornately dressed window with nothing on display. There’s only pixels and color and electricity; sometimes pleasing, other times revolting; but lacking the living experience of the photographer through and through.
I know photos were never made to capture life in this way: to record experiences and interweave them with our own internal emotions. But aren't moments informed by emotion the only ones that matter? If those slices of life: the swirling snow amidst the numbing clarity of winter dusk; the elated faces of friends shifting from huddled conversations to make way for the camera; the tumbling beads of waterfall tears blissfully bathing away all the worries of life; these actual fragments of life: without the emotion and the humanness that grounds them to our own condition as human beings ourselves; rings hollow.
And so every time I try to capture a moment of my own existence this way: yearning for some way to hold on to this feeling of presence, of this bundle of sense and existence and emotion; I’m lost.
The only memories I have are the ones lingering in my head, not tied down and anchored to faded pictures hidden in a scrapbook in the closet, nor stashed in the icy mechanical confines of a server far away. I don’t share those moments of wonder, of awe and fear and elation; these are kept to myself, selfishly squirreled away in grey folds until the emotion subsides, the heartbeat slows, and the moment forgotten. But what else can I do? I don’t take pictures.
Photo credit to: https://www.flickr.com/photos/106193627@N06/10791444743
