More discoveries from the past. Haven't seen myself in baby pictures in years.
Ice Cream, 1973
general
Young Man
My father, when he was about 15 years younger than I am now.
A few years after this photo, taken in 1973, he was mowing with this mower and it rolled over on top of him. Today, it might kill him; then, he got up, probably cussed a bit, and rolled it back over and continued.
The Discovery
I have been going through my mother’s things, and it never occurred to me that she would have done the same thing with her own mother almost twenty years ago when my grandmother passed. She would have discovered pictures, looked at them, puzzled over them, organized them. They, too, would have been snapshots and portraits, but from a different time, from a different reality.
Today, I found those images.
Images that look as if they came from a Ken Burns documentary. Images of my family that are completely foreign to me. I can’t look at these and think, “Isn’t that Aunt L in the sixties?” I don’t recognize the places, the faces, the adults, the children — I don’t recognize anything.
Were they not in my mother’s belongings, tucked away in a Rubber Maid storage bin, could I not recognize one single last name and think, “I believe that was my grandmother’s mother’s family,” had I not known that they were my family, I would never know it.
And now I am so full of questions, so curious, so wanting to know everything about these people — and so frustrated that I didn’t find these years ago, when I could ask Mom about them, when I could take notes, when I could maybe even hear stories.
I have one cousin I can ask, and will do so shortly…
Sunday
Polish lessons with the Boy in the morning.
Finishing up a project in the afternoon.
The Moment the Shutter Clicks
The moment the photographer presses down the shutter release and takes a picture is, at that instant, a beautiful moment worthy of remembering forever. That's a lofty way of looking at it, to be sure, but there is some truth to that statement even regarding the most rudimentary, spur-of-the-moment snapshot. This was even more the case before the days of digital photography and vitrually-infinite storage. Each image actually cost money and eventually had to be stored. So I think we might have been a little more circumspect about taking photos, taken a little more care then.
Tonight, I began going through old photographs that Nana had saved. There are thousands of them, and I have looked at each one of them and put them in one of two pile: save or discard. The discard pile is at least twice as big as the save pile. From a practical standpoint, it has to be: I'm planning on scanning all the saved pictures. But even more so, the vast majority of the pictures are, despite the seeming worthiness to the photographer's eye, utter crap. They fall into one of two categories: time has had its way with the photographs and they're washed out, turned pink, darkened, or completely washed out. In short, there's no picture there anymore. The other category has to do with subject matter and composition: it's meaningless, or it's something like the backs of two people standing talking at a car.
Friday
Thursday
Yesterday, we bought a new piece of furniture for Papa. He doesn't have a closet, so we bought him something like a wardrobe. And the door opened violently as we were taking it out of the house (owners moving -- everything must go!) and the door broke right at one of the joints. So first thing this morning: round up some clamps from a neighbor and get to gluing.
I added "fix cabinet door" to my summer to-do list just so I could check it off.
Next, the kitchen counters need resealing and repolishing. The Boy was eager to help. He chattered away the whole time about how important it was to take care of our granite ("Daddy, what's granite?") and how we were such good homeowners to be so conscientious about everything and how it's important to spray all the sealers and polishes evenly (shortly after I told him that -- he likes to do that as it makes him feel adult) and a thousand and one other things.
Late afternoon: K comes back and sets about making another cobbler from the blueberries that are now ripening like mad every day.
And the Boy had to get in on that as well.
Today’s Ride
16.79km at 1:55:57 — average speed 8.7km/h
Wednesday
Pulled it apart, checked for clogs, cleaned out a bit of gunk, put it back together, and reinstalled it.
Still not working.
Helping
Babcia informs us that L has been absolutely wonderful -- "We have a great relationship!" she proclaimed. She's put the Girl to work, ironing, cleaning, changing bed clothes in the guest rooms.
This is honestly such a relief. The Girl can be, well, a typical twelve-year-old when it comes to helping around the house. I think I expect too much of her sometimes; I think I expect too little of her other times. Even though I'm a teacher and preach this to my students constantly, I forget it with my own kids: perfection is the goal but only insofar as continually striving for it ensures we never settle. Mistakes are part of that process; half-assed jobs are part of that process; even fussing at not wanting to do it is a part of that process.
I don't want to tinker about with the dishwasher tomorrow. I don't want to move the left-over bricks into the crawlspace tomorrow. I don't want to re-mount Papa's TV tomorrow. I say these types of things to the kids every time they complain about not wanting to complete this or that responsibility, but it's often more sarcastic than it needs to be.
The Boy likes helping, but he too is starting to complain about things. We all complain. I guess that's part of it.