saving the past: scanning photos and memories

5 minute read

For months now, I haven’t felt like blogging. I write every day. Privately. Nothing I feel like sharing or showing to anyone.

I journal every day, thumbing into my phone whatever pops into my head, letting it spill into my DayOne app. Some days, I work on one of the short stories I’ve started drafting. On and off, I’ve been working on pieces of fiction, sprinkling in ideas when they come to me, watching them simmer and thicken, knowing that I’ll know when they’re done, cooked to almost perfection. No story is ever perfect.

But this past April 30, the eighteenth anniversary of Sam’s death, I felt like sharing this. And sharing that made me feel like writing (and sharing) this. Which is how it goes. Objects in motion (thoughts → fingers → typing → lines snaking the screen…) stay in motion.

a picture taker

Ever since I can remember, I’ve loved taking pictures. Creating art using only one eye, one finger. I’m not a professional, though I did take a photography class when I was twelve or thirteen (I remember that girl; she wanted to be a photographer). I’ve always loved capturing moments with a camera. Even though, while aiming and taking the picture, I’m aware that one day that photo will be all that’s left of that someone, that place, that day, that leaf, that snail…, but I take the picture anyway. To keep it/to look at/to remember. Boxes of photos line my closet shelves.

I was the picture taker now, capturing images of everyday life. Filling boxes with thousands of photos organized in envelopes by date. 

I photographed the boys snorkeling in the kiddie pool, picnicking in the driveway, riding their bikes, laughing on their swing set, building sandcastles, staring out at the ocean, at the sunset. I zoomed in close-up, eyelash-close, and watched them watching life.

(excerpt from Willower: Rewriting Life After Unimaginal Loss: Chapter 2. Living normally)

tackling this huge project

For a while now, I’ve wanted to tackle the huge project of scanning (digitizing) all those photos—the ones taken before smartphones. And, go through and scan all those boxes of school papers from my boys’ early school years—squiggly letters hovering on rows of triple blue lines, and pages of construction paper covered in crayon-colors, glitter, or finger-painted artwork.

Mostly, I need to save the past because I don’t want to forget (who I was, who we were, what I had, the good times, the laughter). So many memories have already faded. Once scanned and backed up, I’ll have them all at my fingertips. So anytime I want, I can scroll through memories, and see that one, or that one, and remember that time when…, or that place where…, or that person who… 

For years, I’ve put off doing this until another day, maybe next week, next month, next year? Meanwhile, time keeps ticking away. And then I think how devastated I’d be if I were to lose these boxes of treasure in a fire, or the next hurricane. Or what if they end up getting lost when we move?

I had to be vigilant. I was the picture taker, the memory keeper, family historian, photographing and cataloging our days. 

(excerpt from Willower: Rewriting Life After Unimaginal Loss: Chapter 3. Courage)

There’s usually one in every family: a picture taker…

box by box, photo by photo

I did it/I’ve done it/I’m doing it!

Finally, this year, as I draft and rewrite the next chapter of my life, the one that follows The Empty Nest called Downsizing (the plot involves decluttering, and planning a move to a smaller space), my motivation has kicked into high gear.  

Objects in motion…

Last January, I opened a box and started. I’m estimating that (scanning thousands of photos, pieces of artwork, and school papers) it’ll take me a few more months. Little by little, a few hundred each day, photo by photo, page by page, I’m digitizing my past, backing it up box by box. So far, using my iPad and the Photomyne app, I’ve scanned over 5,900 images! With only a small mountain of boxes ahead of me, I’m starting to see the finish line.

It’s incredibly tedious but I’m enjoying the process. It’s a lot like writing, but instead of crafting one sentence at a time, I’m touching, seeing, remembering, and arranging the pieces of my life’s puzzle, one photo, page, or painting at a time.

decade by decade 

The 1960s and 70s. A mish-mash of warm-toned photos and slides of my childhood. Me posing with my cat or my dog or on my bike or at the beach, or in front of houses once lived in that I hardly remember. Then apartments and townhomes I lived in later, after my parents divorced. I remember those.  

The late 70s to early 80s. Me in braces, sunburned, my teen years, laughing with friends—our hair!—in different places over the years, coming of age, boyfriends, college, graduating, traveling, moving, apartments, working, adulting!

The 1990s. A bridal shower, a wedding, a first house, our pets, another city, our second house, a baby shower, a baby…

The 2000s. Two, baby and toddler, in diapers, smiling grandparents, a mini-van, then pre-school and elementary school pictures, pudgy-hands in finger-paintings, family vacations, holidays…

saving the past

The act of scanning and saving the past in such a slow, meticulous way, for me, feels necessary. A systematic way, I think, of letting go of the past (by keeping a backup of it), while also preparing myself mentally/emotionally for that day (soon) when we’ll pull out of our driveway for the last time, and say goodbye to our home — our shelter through all the years of grieving; my cave where I hid in the dark and wrote my book; our family room, its walls covered with framed photos, where we continued living, and raising our remaining son — and drive away toward what will be the next chapter in our lives.

After all, I am the picture taker, the memory keeper, family historian.

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NOTE: If you’ve been wanting to scan your photos and want to know more about where to start…let me know.* I’d be happy to share more.

*I’m not being paid to promote or endorse the Photomyne or DayOne apps. Just enjoying using them.