In a photograph of 20 family members, what do you see? For years and perhaps for generations, people will look at that photo from Saturday night and what. Our inclination is to think they will try to identify everyone in the photo. Good. Not easy after a few decades and especially since we are not standing in neat rows like in school. What else? They will quickly identify it as the picture taken at Grandma Mueller’s 90th birthday weekend. It will appear on everyone’s mantle at some point or at least surface in everyone’s picture drawer.
What will not be seen are the sounds and synapses. They will not be able to hear the voices, the thunder of the storm outside, the nervous laughter at small jokes being quietly shared while we wait. And then, click. Take another picture. Click, click.
The sounds are easily described. Synapses, thoughts are more difficult. In looking at the picture, I of course look at myself. Shouldn’t have been sitting on the stool. Too dominate in the picture. Does my scarf look okay? What about my hair? I like my shoes.
And then I look around. And like a Buddhist monk, everything becomes one. I don’t look at hair or clothes or shoes. As family pictures go, it is quite ordinary I think. Many people take pictures. Most have big family events. But I know these people around me and they know me. We are more than names on Christmas cards. We are writing the same story even though the chapters, the characters, the setting, and the plot differ. Right now and perhaps for the years to come, because of this weekend and this captured moment, we will write the same story. Different chapters, characters, settings, and plots. But the same story.
I never thought that would happen.
So in the picture,
