A Southern Oregon photo manager views forested mountains from a hiking trail. — The author looking out over the southern Oregon mountains during a hike.

The View from Here

As I experience the acceleration of time and the deceleration of activity, I find myself spending more time reflecting on my past and trying to remember all of the starting points, side trips, milestones, life shifts, people who have accompanied me through seasons of my life, and those who have witnessed my many forms of self. (And I, theirs.)

I recall the dreams and expectations I had for myself and my family. I recognize what fell away and what appeared that was never considered. I think about what was so important to me and how that has changed. And I connect the dots more easily between there and here.

The author as a 4 year old tap student before a recital. — First dance recital at age 4.

The author as a professional ballet dancer in the role of Cinderella, in a mid-air leap. — First dance recital at age 4.

Looking Back Through Different Eyes

I live in the now but frequently visit the past—not to pine for what might have been, but to enjoy again what may not have been fully appreciated in the moment.

It is an opportunity for gratitude, awe, and wonder. It is also an opportunity for humility, forgiveness, and compassion.

I see my today through the eyes of yesterday, and I regard yesterday through the eyes of the present version of myself.

Perhaps that is one of the gifts of photographs.

A photograph allows us to visit those earlier versions of ourselves—not simply to remember what happened, but to notice things we couldn’t see at the time. A face we had forgotten. A relationship that shaped us more than we realized. An ordinary little moment that seemed insignificant then but feels precious now.

The photograph hasn’t changed.

But we have.

The author on her first day of kindergarten. — I was starting kindergarten and my mother took me to get my long curls trimmed. She turned to tend to my little brother and in that moment, the trim became a pixie. She was so angry! And I hated it. I remember whining about how I “looked like a boy”.

We Don’t Always Know What Will Matter

Sometimes a photograph makes us curious about what happened just before or just after the shutter clicked. Sometimes it brings back a story we haven’t thought about in years. And sometimes it preserves something we didn’t yet understand the value of preserving.

That’s one reason I have become so passionate about preserving photographs and the stories that go with them.

We don’t always know, while we’re living a moment, which moments will someday become part of the story we tell about our lives.

A birthday, a wedding, a graduation—we recognize those as important. But what about the picture of everyone sitting around the kitchen table? The blurry snapshot from a family vacation? The child asleep in the back seat? The person standing at the edge of the photograph who we can no longer ask about?

Those ordinary photographs can become extraordinary with time.

And sometimes, the stories connected to them are just as important as the photographs themselves.

The author's family creating face masks during the pandemic. — In lockdown during the pandemic, my family and I spent a couple of days making many handmade masks out of materials that I had laying around the house. It still seems surreal.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow?

Well, I’ve learned enough about life to keep the plans loose when it’s necessary to make them at all.

I have a better understanding that my choices today will affect my options tomorrow. I have hope that it will unfold with nuggets of wisdom, as well as continued gratitude, awe, and wonder.

I suspect that as my journey within continues to become more rewarding and beautiful, the physical experience of it will try my patience and fortitude and force greater acceptance than I am capable of at this moment.

So, it is not without trepidation that I look ahead.

Which, in turn, brings more gratitude to this moment right now—and for all of those leading up to now.

The Surprise of Getting Older

The biggest surprise about aging is that there are still surprises!

The child version of me believed that with age came clarity of EVERYTHING. And that given the amount of time it took to become the age I am now, for example, there was plenty of time to come to a complete understanding and acceptance of how life works and how to make every decision.

How wrong I was.

I could not have dreamed that it was possible to hold two contradictory beliefs as truths at the same time. I could not have fathomed that 60-some years could feel so fleeting when 50 minutes of Social Studies could be so interminable.

I could not have foreseen that beauty and gratitude are facets of death and grief as real as the deep well of sadness and loss that was all I could envision.

And perhaps that is another reason photographs become more meaningful as we get older.

A photograph of a person, a place, or a season of life can mean something entirely different to us ten, twenty, or fifty years later.

We change.

Our circumstances change.

Our understanding changes.

The photograph simply waits for us to see it differently.

The author's ballet students, sending their affections over a zoom meeting. — My students kept my spirits up when we had to work from home over zoom during the pandemic.

The author instructing her ballet students over Zoom during the pandemic. — My students kept my spirits up when we had to work from home over zoom during the pandemic.

Nothing Is Important—and Everything Is Important

I have held a lifelong fascination with the passage of time, the meaning of life, the ever-changing opinion of what is important, and what TRUTH really is to me.

This is where I currently am:

Nothing is important—and everything is important.

Time is an instant and time is forever.

I know everything and I know nothing.

Truth is not a static thing, nor is there a singular truth—and contradictions are opposite sides of the same truth.

But most importantly, I think I am coming to understand that our time here is brief, and we have a lot of input when it comes to how it is lived.

And maybe preserving memories is part of that.

Not because we should spend our lives looking backward. Quite the opposite.

Because the ability to look back can help us appreciate where we are now.

The photographs we save today may become the windows through which a future version of ourselves—or someone we love—will someday look back at this moment.

We don’t know what that future person will see.

We don’t know what will matter to them.

We don’t know which ordinary Tuesday, family gathering, road trip, hug, laugh, or quiet moment will become precious.

But we can give them the opportunity to discover it.

And tomorrow I may believe differently.