Remembrances

So much of what we hold in mind from childhood resides in captured images that record moments in time that in turn become occasional or favored/featured objects of our gaze/attention through the years.

Around midnight on May 31, 2025 I took a detour down a multi-warren rabbit hole via that familiar basket of old photos referenced on the HOME page here. Deceptively compact, it holds 30 or so different batches of photos, including three stacks of “loosies” (one in particular a real oldies/goodies compilation from which I pulled the above selections); mostly it’s stuffed with vintage photo print envelopes containing sets of images from specific events — vacations, family gatherings, etc.

I went through the loose stacks and then blindly grab-bagged one of the print envelopes, a green and white speckled number emblazoned with the tagline, Send more than words… EVERYONE LOVES PICTURES. (It happened to be the pics from that first Hawai‘i trip, what are the odds.)

Such a time back then, having to turn in our film rolls at the local photo print shop and await their return so our mind’s-eye memories might be fixed for posterity.

As I consider all of this now — life, photos, memories — through the lens of my mom’s recent passing, my interest is less in seeing myself than in seeing her… and seeing her. Between her physical photo archive and her rather prolific digital selfies collection, I have ample opportunities to do the former. And likewise to engage my now wide-open third eye in service to the latter.

Following her physical departure I have been struck daily by how present I feel her with me — as though enveloped by her stardust, both physically as I sort through her things and spiritually as I continue to sense her soul alive in mine.

Truly a blessing.