Memory And Philosophy

View from the breakfast/dinner table in 1970s Minnesota

Same view, different window, better camera and film.

I remember very vividly as a child feeling my surroundings were so ordinary, so unchanging, that I longed for the chance to glance out the window and not see exactly what I saw the last thousand times I looked.

Now that I am an adult, my life changes quickly, or so it feels. I'm glad to have escaped that feeling of being trapped in a never-changing landscape. Many times when I looked through a viewfinder in the hopes of taking a picture, I wanted to defamiliarize myself with the image, so as to bring out some element not previously noted. This was a skill I worked at.

I suppose the joke's on me, because nothing seems to remain the same, and that feeling of eternity I experienced as a child is long gone. Not so terrible. Life is full of blessings and I am grateful.