It was a gift slash burden at my high school for graduating seniors to fill a full page of the yearbook with a photograph and a quote. Choosing the right shot and the right words that you could live with — forever — was a big deal. That was pressure, man.
My friend Jeremy, who was handy with a camera, took this picture of me in my parent’s backyard, which turned out well. Nice composition and cool lighting. (Thanks, Jeremy!) But I remember being less worried about the photo, I was 18, after all, than I was about the words. The words really mattered to me.
Reading them now, these lyrics to the Simon & Garfunkel song, “Bookends,” I see a harbinger of personal mission. I seemed to be aware of how I would feel looking at this page in the future. As though I was leaving myself the message that memory was important. That photographs helped us tap into our memories. Not surprising that I am, and have always been, the keeper of the family photo albums. The one who, at reunions, will stir the memory pot to see what bubbles up.
I think we leave little crumbs of memory for ourselves over our lifetime, to go back to. If we are curious.
