An Old Box

A couple of weeks ago I helped my Mom go through a box of old family photos.  These included photographs that dated from the 1900s, all the way back to my great-great grandmother on my Mom's side.  There were some photos that I had seen before, but most I was seeing for the first time.  How striking it was to see youthful images of people I had only known as elderly, if at all.  And how limited the images were.  These photos offered only glimpses into the lives of my relatives.  A moment at the beach, a picture of a girl holding a cat, a family Christmas long ago.  After looking through these photos, I found I was left with more questions than I started off with.

These photographs left so much out.  They offered simple familial associations, and geographical context, but no real insight into the lives of the people in them.  Especially in the oldest photos, expression was limited.  Smiles were rare, even on children.  Women looked older than they really were.  The stories appeared to be not what I saw in the pictures, but what I didn't see.  This led me to thinking about the history of a family.  How much lives on?  How much more is forgotten?  Are we doing any better now, with our thousands of prints and many photo books?  Or, in the end, are we left still to interpret an expression long past, a scene long gone.  History is interpreted through the lens of the present, and especially, it seems, with family photos.  I looked for similarities to myself; the shape of my nose, the texture of my hair, the curve of my mouth.  I wonder if I assigned similarities where none existed, or missed other nuances due to prejudice, or oversight.

When I look at my life today, it is framed by my children.  Their moments are my moments.  Some moments I can capture on camera, but most are simply lived.  The other day, my Baby was twirling like a ballerina in the middle of the living room.  She had started her dance quite spontaneously, and was whirling happily, arms over her head, her face beaming with delight.  I didn't run for the camera, but just watched her.  She stopped dancing as quickly as she began, and the moment was over.  This was a moment that could not be repeated, or even now captured.  It existed for her, and was remembered by me.  It defines who she is, as a child, better than any picture could.  It would be lost to anyone looking back through our family photos, trying to understand their distant relations.

I wonder how much of who we are is passed on through temperament, or mental fortitude, or capacity for happiness, parent to child.  Is it in the same proportions as physical similarities, or does it run deeper?  Because, even though the joy and context of the moment was fleeting, perhaps that dance echoed dances from long ago, dances that were not captured on film, but that existed and were as real and defining as my daughter's pirouettes.