A visual diary

Fridays
Memory is a fickle thing. Sure, we can remember things such as phone numbers, addresses, different pieces of facts, etc.; however, when it comes to remembering events, well, sometimes memory is not so accurate. This really hit home after a visit back to my old neighborhood in Akron, Ohio. Although I had grown up there and stayed in the same house until I was nearly 22, my memory had played tricks on me. I still believed that the houses had yards as large as football fields, when in reality, they were more like 30 yards deep, rather than 100 yards! My memory was colored with lots emotional content and feelings.

This is, I think, the same thing that happens when we come home with what we are sure are some ‘winners’ and are frequently disappointed. We had the emotions of the moment adding color, dimension, and depth to our memories.

I’ve started taking my D40 with me everywhere, again. My daily experiences are that it rains most every day; I spend a small amount of time in traffic; I drive past a paper mill that looks like it’s doing its very best to pollute the entire world with its emissions and malodorous vapors that it emits. On my morning walks, I walk past the same fire station, share a wave with the fireman, say hello to the same fellow walkers each morning; I see a group of 5 ladies who walk through the Publix parking lot on their morning walk, etc. I want to capture these moments. The walking part, I don’t know. It’s kind of dark at that time and I don’t want to lug my camera around, but the rest, certainly.

I’m at the end of my third week of this South Carolina journey. This week I began thinking about how to document it in a form where I can look back upon it and trigger some of the memories that I am creating. As an example, the picture above represents Friday to me. It’s the day when I hit the road. It’s the only day that I make up my bed because I want to have a nice clean place to return to on Sunday.

In all honesty, I’m having a good time. It’s not as bad as I thought that it would be. Mind you, I miss my family a lot, but it’s nice not having any responsibilities. On the other side, there is no rest on the weekends as I spend 7 hours (round trip) on the road each weekend and end up back at the apartment on Sunday evening in time to do a little grocery shopping and sleep so as to be ready to go on Monday. Somehow, I want to try to capture this.

Has it been done before? I’m sure that it has, but it’s something that I’d like make my own, just a little slice of my life that I’d like to remember a little more accurately.