Out of the Box
February 7, 2005 For those of you who've decided to read along, here I am. I have a terrific headache and my children have been bickering for most of the afternoon. I can't wait for spring to arrive. Being indoors is about to do me in. Lily has finally decided to work on her hook rug and Clara is playing her lap harp. Unfortunately, she is playing Christmas songs. *sigh*Well, I have put up a gallery for my photographs and added a link to it over there to the left, for future reference. There are some pictures that I took with my trusty, old Pentax K1000 and had to digitize, a couple taken with my newly acquired Canon EOS 20D, but the bulk of them were taken with my Epson PhotoPC 3000Z. I have had my Epson for four years and my Canon for only a few short months, so most of my favorite digital images are from my Epson. I am anxious to take more pictures with my new Canon, though. The images are so much better in quality.
Something that has become quite apparent to me is that I take an awful lot of pictures of children. This has given me cause to think. (As if I needed one.) Among the obligatory pictures of birthday parties, holidays, vacations and visits to relatives, the ones that tend to jump out at me are the ones of the children. I shouldn't be surprised since I have always enjoyed being with children. I taught in a Montessori school and worked as a nanny before I had children of my own. The thing is that I think it goes even deeper than that.
When I was a child, I was considered quite serious, anxious and shy. I now attribute that to the fact that I was almost overwhelmed with sensory input each and every day of my life. My seriousness came out of the fact that I was in a constant struggle to maintain myself in the face of what amounted to a cacophony of sights, sounds, smells and feelings. Even though I was the youngest in my class, I was considered more mature than my classmates mostly because of my silence.
I have always had a very detailed memory of my childhood from the time I was about two until I became an adult. I don't believe the people who claim that you cannot remember anything earlier than three or four years of age. I remember things that had nothing to do with my parents and my parents are often surprised to know, so they are not family memories that were somehow implanted into my memory later in life. I am so familiar with my childhood that it often seems as though I can time travel.
Before I had children of my own, my photography seemed to revolve around attempting to capture what ended up being almost haunting images. It was like I was trying to capture the way I perceived the world because I knew by then that most people didn't experience things the way I did. When I had children, suddenly I was completely absorbed by them. I took pictures of them constantly trying to capture them in little time capsules. Taking pictures of them seemed to be all that really mattered, as far as my photography was concerned. Recently, though, I have come to realize that I am blending my desire to capture the world as I've experienced it with capturing the experience of childhood itself.
One of my favorite photographs is of my nephew wrapped tightly in a hammock while we were on a camping trip in New Hampshire. I see myself in that photograph more than most. His small, serious face. The comfort of being wrapped cocoon-like in a quiet place. The way the sun dapples his face in warmth. A place to daydream uninterrupted. I am still trying to find these things.
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Comments:
I have essentially no memories from before five years of age, and my memories from before age ten are rather fuzzy and incomplete. For someone as obsessed with reminiscence as I sometimes am, this is a source of frustration and regret.
But I don't think the problem is that I've *forgotten* my childhood; rather, it's that I wasn't paying attention to begin with. I do remember stuff from those early years, but most of it is connected with the imaginary worlds where I spent most of my time, not with reality. Sort of the opposite of your problem: rather than being assaulted by an overwhelming flood of sensation, I was too busy with my own fantasies to even notice what was around me.
I often wonder whether Laura is paying attention more than I was, and I'm pretty sure she is. This often gives me the odd feeling that the grown-up future Laura is watching over my shoulder as I create her memories.
Posted by: Bob at February 8, 2005 3:49 PM
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