Kodak Moments

A picture is worth a thousand words. Some pictures leave you speechless. Then there are those that make you laugh so hard you cannot breathe, let alone speak.

They used to be called Kodak Moments, after the major player in the photography field. (Might have to explain that to the younger readers.)

With the recent passing of my father we inherited a few bits and pieces; a computer desk and laptop among them.

I was both happy and sad to see some photos of dad that I'd never seen before, on the disk drive of his computer.

And both sad and happy to have to find room in the cluttered corner of our lounge room we call an 'office', to fit the desk in.

As with any modern family, the amount of actual photographic images is far out of proportion with the number of shots we snap at any given time. These days the visit to the camera shop to develop and print pictures is a forgotten journey, and the trip down memory lane is a lot faster thanks to Instagram and the like. Digital cameras can run off several shots per second, and you can immediately see whose head was cut off, whose finger was over the lens, or even who forgot to take the lens cap off, which happened a lot in the good old days.

To me it means that the photos of old, taken on honest-to-goodness film, are a lot more precious than ever before. It was expensive to print pictures back in the day, and the shots you got were worth every cent. In some cases- priceless (like the picture of my sister and her man all fitted out for a fancy dress ball, but the only thing mum managed to get in frame was their heads)!

I wouldn't even begin to explain 'slide nights' to the current generation. They were even a little before my time.

Now it's just point and shoot and a lot of shots don't make it out of the camera, let alone into an album.  If you're lucky (or just plain organised) you download them to a disk.

So it was when my family started shuffling things around in the lounge room to fit dad's desk in.  In amidst the mess my Beloved discovered a CD of photos that his mother had sent us- going back to pictures taken when he was but a babe in arms.

Our boychild, who had been given the job of checking any such disks for important info, started to laugh at the thought of seeing his father as a baby. My Beloved took this as an insult and came into the next room where our girlchild and I were sitting.

"He doesn't believe that there are photos of 'young daddy'!" says the man of the moment, in a huff

"There are?" exclaims our daughter

"Because cameras weren't invented when daddy was a bub" says I, tongue-in-cheek

"No, I didn't think so" replies our girl, in all seriousness.

I won't go into the full reply that was given to us by the man of the house, suffice to say he was even less impressed, and amongst his mutterings about photography having been around for close to 200 years now and he wasn't that old yet, my daughter turns to me and says:

"What does it mean when daddy sticks his two fingers up?"

"It means he's not happy with us" I say

More mirth from me, and more grumblings from my man later, and the children finally took a look at their father in his youth.  And got the giggles again.

Needless to say my Beloved won't be lining us up for any slide nights in the foreseeable future.

The look on his face was a Kodak Moment for sure.

I just wish I'd had my camera handy.

Jx

©2012

Yellow Belly

I am a coward.

Bit strange me saying that as I have never been known to back down from a fight, even stepping up for someone else at times. And one of my most useful (and most used) mantras is : "Feel the fear and do it anyway" (thank you Susan Jeffers). I'm forever telling my kids that it's ok to be nervous, that butterflies in the tummy can be good, and the true definition of bravery is being scared of something but having a go regardless- the ol' "get over it, get on with it" mentality.

But today I am a coward.

Too afraid and uncertain of how to act, what to say, that instead I'm keeping quiet.

Not that I'm not worried my silence will send the wrong message. It's just, I don't know what message to send.

So  I sit.

And send none.

And then fret that my fear will take too long and I'll miss the chance to say anything at all.

Here's my dilemna: two people are in two different hospitals, neither of them near, both fighting for their lives. It's been a while since I had an actual conversation with either of them and now the clock is ticking. Fast.

What do you say to someone you once had no trouble filling hours talking to? How do you express the feelings you yourself can't even clearly understand?

And when is the right time, when time is running out?

I've previously pondered the dynamics of human relationships that get waylaid by life. Friendships that are interrupted by the very act of living. Some you can pick up where you left off- if only the chance comes up. And I've philosophised before about the family connections that get cut off by word or deed - or both- from one party or the other. But the human animal is a funny creature- one that relies heavily on "later"...until it's too late.

So, coward that I am, and desperate to not have the final memories be bad ones or sad ones, I haven't actually spoken to either of these people, who were once so dear to me. I've sent balloons to one, SMSed the other, and left a slightly cringe-worthy message on the machine of the mother of my friend, I was so tongue-tied at the time.

Me, the one who they say was born talking (if family mythology can be believed). Me, who could allegedly talk under water with a mouth full of marbles (an untested rumour). Me, who has been known to get paid to speak for a living.  Me, who is sadly, strangely, silent now.

I simply cannot find the words. Nor trust my voice not to break.

A coward indeed.

And I am so afraid that when I find my courage, it'll be just too late to say anything at all.

Jx

©2012