they are my favorite polaroids. each a distinct and exact moment in time. a memory i hold. no one will love them like i love them and i let them go. i was reminded, however, that someone else can love them and interpret them in a way completley different than i did, but still get a glimpse of what i discerned. they might not return to me, but, if they do go home with someone else, they will only do so because the someone else felt something too.
and so here they are.
tell me what you see
and i will tell you what i see:
searching for the sunset, i find it a bit early, so i sit above the rose garden, reading berger and listening to an appropriate song.
on the train to sacramento, for a valentine's date, a tiny plant on the table, wearing my new dress and feeling perfectly old-fashioned.
the lamp in my san diego room, whose light cast such cool patterns across the wall, invisible in this representation, an unexpectedly-good photograph.
the slaughtered trees outside my old high school which i jogged to mid-afternoon to photograph, only to have to return later, when school was out and the parking lot empty so i could stand on the hood of my car to capture it, clutter-free, the sounds of a creditor being placated over the phone a haze in the background.
two doors in a mural on a san franciscan wall, one of my first adventures with one of my now very-best friends.
an orange-doored house across from a run-down diner in central nevada, a rainy day on the last family road trip before everything changed.
You seem sentimentally gifted, and I hope your Polaroids find themselves in comparably affectionate hands.
ReplyDeleteI see Polaroids, which means technological nostalgia and/or instant (and tactile!) gratification. Polaroid also means there's just one copy (ephemeron?), which I suppose was the point of this project.
I see six photos of the world, but no people! Zombie armageddon? But seriously, the sun (too big for one photo, so it leaks into a second!) and four modest buildings (with ten manicured trees). Like the world's too big to conquer; let's scratch out a tiny place for ourselves and make everything look neat and tidy. Shit, that wall's too blank--let's splash color all over this other one. Not enough, more! We may not be as breathtaking as a sunset, but we're damn sure more colorful. 25% of the time.
i like what you see :)
ReplyDeleteoh alison!
ReplyDeleteyou are gifted indeed. i hope you see that picture of the sun again. the one from the train.
all i see is two amazing people who i love.
i stumbled upon your blog, and i couldn't help but being happy and sad at the same time. i don't know if you're sending the polaroids to random people, but if you are, i think that's an amazing, albeit hard thing to do. i can only imagine getting a polaroid in the mail from someone i don't know, and being creeped out but at the same time, somewhat enchanted, especially with images that so obviously carry meaning and an element of nostalgia.
ReplyDeletethanks for making me think.