A friend said to me recently, "You take a lot of photos. Are they for Instagram?"
Her observation is perhaps one shared by many, but she's been the only one brave enough to ask me with genuine curiosity and, I feel, no judgment.
Yes, I take a lot of photos.
I think the invention of a built-in camera on a cell phone is one of the greatest.
I take a lot of photos:
restaurant menus;
kids' birthday invitations;
medical ID cards;
shoes I think my daughter might like;
a close-up of my kid's eye.
I have always done so, especially when my kids were little. I took thousands of photos of them in various stages and milestones. At times of learning and experimentation. Of silliness and play. Of simply being.
Back then, I was capturing moments in time that I knew would slip through our fingers. Which they have. (I can barely remember exactly how little they used to be without these photos.)
I have grown in appreciation of these photos and those of my life with Mike before kids (not nearly as many) since he died. The reason is obvious, of course.
That said, I have come to appreciate something else about them.
As I periodically look through photos of Mike (alone or with other people) that I took, I realize that these are basically my memories. I have an entire visual collection of memories of Mike. Each scene is unique to me and my point of view.
No other person, even if they knew the context and setting for a photo, would know precisely how I felt when I took that photo, or what I was thinking. Or why I took it, even.
It would be as if each photograph I took is encoded with my very own DNA.
If you were to look at my phone's photo album from the weeks following Mike's death, you will notice that many of the photos are of random things taken by the American River. These were taken during my walks with my friend Veronica. Back then, she endeavored to walk with me at least once a week. We would walk companionably, sometimes in silence, and she would wait very patiently as I would crouch to the ground and take a photo of a flowering weed. Or some pebbles. A dead tree. Moss on a rock.
There is a photo of a duck swimming towards us. I am reminded that this particular duck, a male, seemed to be swimming towards us with great intention, against the current. And it ended up walking a few paces from us on the riverbank.
I remember that, before I snapped the photo, Veronica whispered, very matter-of-factly, loud enough for me to hear, "Hi, Mike!"
Unbeknownst to her, I was simultaneously thinking, "Hey there... Is it you?"
I remember that it didn't feel weird that we had similar thoughts at the time. And it also wasn't weird that we said no more of it after the moment was gone.
Over time, the photos in my photo album have become more random. Interspersed with all the "administrative photos" (kid's new school schedule and the like) and "obligatory and important photos" (kid's recital photos, etc.), are a hodgepodge of seemingly arbitrary things.
A beautiful shoe. A honeybee. The center of a tulip. Leaves on a tree. A cocktail.
One is a photograph of a blood orange martini. I remember that it was delicious. I also know for a fact that it was the only photo I took of that evening that I spent with my best friend Laura. I know that it was the week of her birthday (and the week before Mike's) in September 2022. I remember that she had flown in from out of town. I know what we ate and what show we saw afterwards.
Most importantly, I remember that it was the first time that I didn't find it odd that someone else was sitting in Mike's seat in the theater. It was the first time I thought, "I am glad I renewed our season tickets."
Like this photo and the one of the duck, some of my seemingly random photos contain a built-in story.
Still others hold just a feeling.
It is fairly recent that I realized that I have been collecting memories of things that, to quote Marie Kondo, "spark joy".
I also realize that I have done this subconsciously, to counteract my grief.
When my grief was still new and very raw, my wise friend Kathy counseled me to do small things that bring me joy. And I did many small things, like walk by the river by myself or with a friend, but I never really thought much about the photos I started taking.
I started baking bread again, and even these, I took photos of. At the time, I just thought they were beautiful. Now I know that I took the photos to remind myself of a joyful thing I did during a time when my brain was foggy.
Truly, I think, my brain was subconsciously urging me to take these photos, as if to say, "Remember this, Lynette!"
When I go through the photos in my photo album from the last couple of years, I feel like I have strung together little beads of joy. It makes my heart feel full to know what a long necklace they can make.
Now I have become more intentional in photographing moments that spark joy. It is like a prayer. Gratitude for a blessed moment.
In so doing, I feel like I am saying, "I see you, Joy."
And also, "Thank you for visiting."
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