Shutter Sisters Cross Post: You Or Your Memory

Digging through a multitude of miscellaneous boxes, attempting to separate wheat from chaff, I stumbled upon several photographs from almost a decade ago nestled amongst the chaos of junk mail and official documents.  These weren't just any old snapshots; they held the keys to a bounty of some of my fondest memories that had somehow gotten misplaced with the busyness and clutter of every day life over the years.

Blasting Blink182 all the way down through Santa Cruz to Pebble Beach...finding out Pebble Beach is actually a Golf Course...climbing the big pile of boulders pretending we were on our Big Rock Candy Mountain...pretending we didn't hear the maintenance staff yelling at us...watching the kite surfers soar over the bay as the sun dipped lower in the western horizon...wandering around for hours and hours with no need for either a plan or small talk...These are a few of the memories that come rushing back from one of my favorite vacations ever, visiting my dear friend Josh from high school.  And all it took was glancing at a couple photos...

++++++++++++++++++++++

A version of this post appears today on Shutter Sisters.  Something a little more personal about that trip...those were my last carefree, happy memories before finding out that my dad had pancreatic cancer and before parts of my life just crumbled to dust.  Maybe that's why those memories mean so much to me now...

And here is another photo I found in the same box that I discovered the Polaroid of Josh.  This is my dad at the DMZ (38th parallel Demilitarized Zone between North and South Koreas) with his press armband.  It's one of my favorite photos of him.  Today is Father's Day, and I miss my dad...

Shutter Sisters Cross Post: Déjà Vu

My daughter is now just over 5 1/2, which is about how old I was as my family was preparing to move from Seoul, Korea to Chicago, and I have vivid memories of this age.  Lately, I often find myself trying to recall who I was in those days, to remember what I thought about, what I liked to do, how I saw the world through my five-and-a-half year old eyes.  In doing so, I hope to better understand and empathise with my often feisty and saucy girl.

These days, when I sometimes look through my photos of her, I'll suddenly see myself thirty-something years ago.  I remember how much I liked to walk on balance-beam lines, or to swing way up high, or to make funny faces at the camera, or to wear dresses that twirl.  It has been a gift to me, transporting myself back to the happy moments of my own childhood.  And it has reminded me how quickly childhood passes, which motivates me to be a tad more patient of a mother.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A version of this appears on Shutter Sisters today, as well as a link to this photo from my own childhood back in good old Seoul:

I Need To Learn From The Cat...

...how to, like, TOTALLY chillax.  I know I've been burning the candle at both ends, and while I have no idea what that idiom refers to, it sounds pretty darn exhausting. 

The photo above was from our stay on the Olympic Peninsula on the property of the cabin where we spent a couple nights.  That was a place where you had no choice but to relax--no phones, no TV, no internet.  But in the mornings, there was that beautiful mist, a family of deer and endless blackberry bushes.  Oh, and this kitty cat who walked alongside me like we'd been friends for ages.