My mother stockpiles boxes upon boxes in her basement filled with our childhood photos. When I was little, I would tip-toe into the photo section, topple the boxes over, spend cautious hours looking at every picture, and cut faces out of the ones I loved to make a collage for my mirror, or tiny bejeweled frames in my room. I got in trouble for that. A lot.
My grandmother, her mother, had a much more orderly system. She had physical-hold-in-your-hand-photo albums. Oh yes. Not only did she have photo albums, but she took the time to describe each picture, to put it in its proper place, to record each memory. One day as I was looking through her books sitting on the couch next to my grandfather, he bestowed upon me a great honor. "Take em' shug," he said in his Alabama twang. Now I am the proprietor of these treasures. And they are...treasures. Moments from his life.
**Just a side note that I can't resist pointing out. Look at the top left picture in the album. Yup. That's my Mimi. Sitting right in between a naked statue's legs. She was a spitfire and a goofball. I can just hear laughter now and my Papa shaking his head.
They just don't make pictures the way they used to. So beautiful. The light, the paper, the border...
