i had to find my birth certificate today for some paperwork that i was filling out. i was digging through my baby book and found myself suddenly on an odd quest for answers. i pawed through the pages of milestone descriptions and class photos. my mom wrote things like “self assured” and “determined” to describe me.
i searched my face in 8×10 school pictures. what i was looking for i’m not quite sure. i just felt like there was some secret lying beneath the surface. i stared like it was one of those 3d pictures and instead of a sailboat or a dinosaur some elusive,fundamental part of myself would be revealed. needless to say, no such luck. all i saw was wonky hair, imperfect teeth and large, scared eyes.
i’ve always been a nostalgia bug(dubbed as such by a friend’s mother in 6th grade). more than anything looking through these pictures made me feel the way i felt when i looked through them when i was younger. we had a large cabinet that contained box after box, book after book spilling over with photos. going through them was one of my favorite things to do. while other kids would spend their spring breaks outdoors or going to sports camps, i prefered to spend hours pouring over family photos. the same ones that i had looked at a thousand times before. even then i think i sought answers. what i received instead was comfort. i don’t know why these sessions comforted me. perhaps it was the feeling of being a part of something. of belonging SOMEWHERE. i would lose myself in those moments. for two hours i was fully immersed in the warm hazy world of memories. i loved the pictures i was in. i loved the pictures i wasn’t in. i loved the pictures of days and fashion gone by.
i once had a dream about the house we moved out of when i was three years old. i have very few memories from that house and am sketchy about even the layout. in my dream i stepped inside a photo of the house. i walked from room to room seeing them just as they were in 1986, red-orange carpet and all. it was the most fantastic feeling. it was the feeling of a moment frozen in time. this is what i remember loving about graceland. we visited when i was 15 and i was in heaven. i didn’t care about the jumpsuits or the cars. what i remember was the carpeted kitchen and the ashtrays still containing cigarette butts. it was as if i found a magic rip in time and stepped back into 1973, frozen and perfect.
maybe that’s what it’s all about. frozen and perfect. i don’t deal well with change. i never have. but when i look at those pictures everything is the same again. just as it was. just as it should be. and i can pretend, if just for a moment that i am there.
