Memories, fact or fiction...

Memories, Fact Or Fiction

Yesterday I spent the day looking at pictures. Old pictures from almost a million years ago... or so it seemed, as these photos were before the Internet.

I was one of those people who always planned on getting organized and put my photos in an album. I was also one of those people who never did. My photo storage consisted of a big cardboard box. I've always been big on boxes.

I even had lofty goals of scanning and filing in photo programs I bought, I've always been big on photo programs, but I never did. I was always too busy on the Internet.

I sorted through the box, looking at the fading photos, creating piles. I'm big on piles. Each pile pertaining to some aspect of the past. 

I was looking for photos to illustrate stories in my other blog. I'm working on being big on blogs.  http://www.amostunlikelycowgirl.blogspot.com

That's when I learned that my memories and my photos... 

...well, they didn't always agree.

Each photo I picked up evoked a long, thought induced trip back in time. Ahhh yes... I remember I'd sigh... deep in reverie, but then I'd look at the picture and I was wrong. I sometimes had people in different locations or locations with different people.

Hey what gives?

My memory and the photo facts were at odds and in some cases, at war.

So what was really true? I'm big on truth.

The more I thought about it the more I realized a fact. Pictures are static chronicles of a single moment in time... memories are a collection of photo moments, all woven together in a colorful storyboard and some of those storyboards are for cartoons. (I'm big on cartoons.) Like the Panorama photo programs for your computer, sometimes things get blended or smudged to make the final product.

So my memories were... smudged. I'm not big on smudged.

As I looked at the fading pictures I remembered both the moment and the memories. 

I remembered the moment in sharp detail (like wearing glasses) and then the memories in a warm glow (like having that 2nd glass of wine). Each in its own way poignant. 

I remembered the people and how they once were (I was thin and didn't use Clairol), some moved away, some passed but all forever captured in memory. I remembered places which have so changed over the years (before it became a 4-lane), I remembered the kids who were now grown (when they were little and cute), I remembered the clothes (yes we actually wore that), the music (it's not noise), the cars (big fins rule!) and I remembered... the times.

My simple job of getting a few photos became an all day event as I traveled through time. It was the best trip of my life and one in which I didn't need reservations, plane tickets or a change of clothes... and yes, I really was that thin! I'm big on that.