I haven't ever written about this for many reasons, but mostly because there's not actually that much to say. I sort of already said it. And writing about photographs is notoriously challenging. But I am still always struck by this uncanny dated factor whenever I look at old photos, or even those that aren't, technically, that old.
I was just on Facebook looking at some photos posted by old friends when I stopped on one I could have jumped right into had I been wearing my burgundy-colored Levis cords and my thick shelf of bangs. I could almost hear The Brady Bunch playing on the black-and-white TV with the bent rabbit ear antennae in the background of the shot.
I looked harder. Orange carpet, those faux wood bookshelves, the complete Encyclopedia Britanica with its faux leather covers (a lot of faux in the 70s). The dried flowers in a pottery vase in autumnal shades on the mantelpiece. The polyester blend stripes, the sneakers, the whole damn thing.
I guess, to try to explain a little better, it's as though certain years, decades even, never existed until I glance at somebody else's random snapshot and then all of a sudden can't think about anything else but where our Lite-Brite was stored in the toy closet, the plaid wallpaper on the basement walls, Shake-and-Bake fried chicken and really short gym shorts with the white piping down the sides.
And then, back to what I started with. When will my pictures of now--me in a Bush's Last Day baseball cap standing in a friend's suburban driveway in front of a minivan with Annika in my arms, my parents on the beach reading the newspaper while Lily plays at the shoreline with rocks--when will these photos, too, reek so intensely of the past? And how will I bear when it happens?
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