Note: this essay comes from a voice note to self that I made while experiencing a memory recall. Forgive the grammatical and/or sentence structure flow, as I am trying to stay with my original word vomit, while staying true to my brain’s original outpouring. I did my best to remove all the um’s and likes (didn’t even realize I said ’like’ so much.) LOL!- Dina
Have you ever come across an old photograph that just takes you right out of yourself, and takes you back to a place that you had completely forgotten you’d ever been to in your life?
I’ve had that happen to me while going through my old photographs, physical photographs (even old digital ones, as the ones I have included in this essay). I’ve had them stored in boxes that I’ve carried back and forth across the country for the last 40 years. It makes my brain burn, it makes me reflect. It makes all this stuff happen - that affects me, physically and mentally. It’s not good or bad or anything.
It just is what it is.
I had a moment of recognizing what that effect has had on me. It was profound, and then, on the other hand, it’s like, well, it’s just what life is, and nothing’s special about it. But then, it’s special to me, because it brings back memories of places that I deeply wish I could go back and visit.
For some, I wish I could live in those places - even just for a little while to enjoy the gestalt of it. And with other places, it’s the thought of ‘what the hell was I doing there?’ kind of thing. I enjoy the feeling of what’s happening to me physically when I look at these photos, my soul shifts a little. I like the internally spiritual places those memories take me, and the emotions they invoke.
But on the other hand, it’s like… Wow, you’ve done all this. Where are you now? What are you doing now? And, it kind of feels, not in as much as, uh, dead, but empty, like, ‘oh, you achieved everything. You did it.’ What else is there? What else you got?
Maybe I reached for the secret too soon (thank you, Pink Floyd (Crazy Diamond)). But the other side of that thought is - I’ve reached my goal. I did it before I died. I just thought I’d always be just reaching for it. Instead, I reached it. Now what am I gonna do? Kind of thing. Peggy Lee’s “Is That All There Is” plays in the background of my thoughts.
And, looking back on the photos, it’s like, oh, I could travel back to those places. But then it’s like, ‘Nah, I’m just…I feel comfortable. I’m very comfortable.’ I’ve made my life comfortable enough. The effort to go somewhere else just seems not as rewarding, not as fulfilling, not as safe.
And that’s the thing. Do I want to keep feeling safe? Can I make myself feel safe by wandering around in an RV? That’s a whole other thing I’m thinking about now.
So, for now - I just know, it all starts from a photograph, kicking off into a memory, and taking me to emotional places that don’t leave me with any feeling of conclusion or end. It’s more like a feeling of ‘I don’t know if the story will end or where it ends’ - but evidently it is not done.
Another thing I’ve noticed - I always keep putting these final limits on my thoughts. ‘Well, once this happens, then I’ll do this.’ ‘Once this happens then, I’ll do that.’ And I always keep putting mental hurdles in front of me of. I still have this other barrier to shaking up my world, which is a bit of self denial - I’ve kind of built this thing, but I’m not totally happy with this thing. I know I’m not.
Yeah, it’s just, it comes back to the whole psychodrama of, wow, a photo shifted me. Be it a photo of previous adventures in Monument Valley Utah, or that time when I was driving through a town that I can’t even name.
Amazing what that photo kicked off inside me. Other photos do too, but that one particularly sent me into a place, ‘cause I did not remember that particular stretch of road. But, to know that I was physically on it, in the car, taking the photo, is like ‘yeah dude, you were there.’
Somewhere around 2003 two worlds cross. I went from an Olympus digital camera being my way of recording my adventures, to eventually the iPhone became how I captured my life. This Monument Valley, Zardoz Moment photo was taken on the Olympus in September 2004. The road photo is from June 26, 2010 shot from my iPhone 3G, somewhere near Green River, Utah.
