Wednesday 15 August 2012

Time gone past

Photographs are strange records of time gone past. My parents didn't have many (see below) because they couldn't afford to buy the film nor have them developed. My sisters and I regularly grumble at the decreasing number they had of us as children - so dozens of the eldest reducing to maybe one or two of the youngest - and with four children any difference shown was enough to start a war. I don't think they were unusual, people simply didn't have as much disposable cash as we all seem to nowadays.

In contrast, in our home we have dozens of photos - pictures of the kids, on holiday, at school, family events. Loads on display and boxes and boxes in the huge cupboard under the stairs. A year ago we were pulling the box out a lot in preparation for the embarrassment we hoped to inflict on the eldest at her 18th birthday party. Sorting through the snapshots has been great fun - causing guffaws of laughter, cries of 'shame about the face' and chagrin from the youngest about the small number we have of her compared to the others. De ja vu, indeed.

But what was interesting and had never occurred to me before was the view expressed by a dear friend on a recent visit - of all the photos on display, there are none of me with the exception of one whole family photograph we had taken at a studio.  Well, of course, it is me who takes the photos.  I carry the camera and pull it our often enough to record the kids and daft happenings or to recreate a shot from years gone by (so last summer we drove to a specific spot to take picture of the kids in the same pose we have up on a screensaver from 10 years gone by) but as the kids are always busy, doing, I record the doings.  And I, well I don't do anything.  I am the recorder, the observer, the big fat controller.


Time under the bridge

I have no idea how long it is since I last wrote on here.  I suspect many months, possibly a few years.  Writing for me has always been a guilty pleasure, managed only with time snatched from elsewhere, stolen moments when I really should have been doing something else like the washing, tidying the kitchen or time spent on me instead of the children and specifically, the daughter.  But now I have no excuses.  I have six months spread out in front of me like a huge magic carpet ready for the ride of a lifetime.

Since I last had time to write I have achieved many things: obtained a post grad diploma, changed career, come off medication (worthy of a blog in itself), walked my beloved daughter through a million miles of heartache and out the other side and now, just now, had a diagnosis of cancer.

So I will have, finally, the luxury of time in which to carve out a little piece of time for myself.  I know this to be true and I know that it will be the way of shaping and controlling my existence, my life.  My whole life I have scratched little snippets down on paper and more recently put it out on postings in the online communities.  But I don't want to waste my writings, so here it will be.  Collected, unlike me.