Time After Time

I have a dishwasher to empty, laundry to fold, four kids to feed, bags to pack and a race waiting for me tomorrow morning. I am not even close to getting any of that done. In fact if these kids were smart they would ask right now for lollipops for breakfast because they would get 'em!

I spent yesterday with my sister systematically going through our childhood home sorting,chucking, taking and musing over all the things my mother held dear. The items we stored away in the attic. The items packed away when something new came along to replace them. We found crystal and glassware and strange "knickknack " items . Some things neither of us want and some things we gave to one another. Some items we looked at and wondered why our mother had them in the first place. There is a pile big enough to fill Good Will in the garage. Clothes, stuffed animals,records with the funky 60's and 70's kaleidoscope of fashion and colors. My mother's hymns and gospel records. These fascincate me. They were played on a piece of furniture we had in our living room for years when I was growing up. It was practically the size of a couch and had knobs for dialing in all kinds of fuzzy radio stations and ear splitting whines when you hit a "non station". It was half record player and half radio. And it was probably all the rage in 1970. For many years I had to stretch up on my toes just to peer inside and make the record player move. It was during this time that the room was decorated in orange and vivid green and gold. The couch and small chair had the same pattern of orange and gold flowers with green for the viney stems and the loveseat was gold. This was the "good" room. The room that was used for company, parties, special occasions. It is where the Christmas tree was for most of my childhood, sitting poised in the large Bay Window so it could be seen from the sidewalk. Where our Easter baskets were left by the Easter Bunny.

As we are moving from room to room and picking out things we would like or taking photos off the walls, I can hear this symphony of voices swelling around me. I hear the adult laughter of my parent's friends during their parties and gatherings. I hear my Uncle telling yet another story from the childhood he shared with my mother and the way it made us all laugh even if we had heard that story just months ago at our last family gathering. I can hear my mother's voice calling me when she needed me or my father's stern voice calling out for me to turn out a light or TV from the last room I was in. I feel pummeled by nearly 20 years of memories.

My father kept busy with his grandchildren and keeping them out of our way. I am sure the distraction was welcome. Who could possibly watch 40 years of their life flash before them in the crystal stem ware and Christmas decorations. To me everything held a memory, or many at once. My sister was more pragmatic about it. One of us had to be. I get very caught up in the passage of time. I am not crazy about change. I like to return to things and  have them be as I remembered and not as they are now. And going through so many things from my childhood and my mother's life and realizing how much time has moved like a swift current in a flooding river just set my teeth on edge.

As the cacophony of memories continued in my head and moments of complete meltdown over came me, there also came an understanding. A realization that time moves on because it is supposed to and change is good. That life is not meant to sit still. That we are not meant to sit still and stay the same. My mother loved her stuff and as hard as it was to say no to many things that I know she held dear. I came to understand that it was her stuff and she had her own reasons for loving it. I did take a few things that I loved about my childhood home. Things I can use now or things that remind me of growing up.

I think this is why I love photography. It takes a moment and freezes it. This works out very well for folks like me who need to grasp the past in order to understand the present. To be able to see into the eyes of someone who may not be here any longer and see life as they might have seen it. Because that's the  thing about time no matter how hard we try to measure it,hold it and tie it down it keeps moving. It only moves forward with no repeats.

The closets are almost cleared in my father's house. The walls are almost bare but the wonderful thing about my life is the memories I can pull out at any moment no matter where I am.