When both of my parents died 4 years apart, over a decade ago I was not only left broken hearted and bereft, but tasked with going through and emptying their house, my childhood home with almost every trace of our family story and the foundation of what makes me me. My two older brothers and I rummaged in the attic through boxes of trinkets, boxes of old school projects and yellowed papers. We sold my parent’s rose patterned Rosenthal wedding china that we celebrated every holiday and special occasion with, and used my mom’s cherished fancy french dining room table as a command center sorting through delicate souvenirs collected from a lifetime. I stopped my sorting to imagine how horrified she would be watching us clumsily move pieces across her wood table that she had had special pads made to cover and protect it from scratching.
When we were working to empty our home, there was little time for sentiment or a slow pace. There was one mission, and that was to empty as quickly as possible and to move on with the painstaking process. Yet at times during the process I couldn’t resist the pull to plant myself on memory lane, and more specifically on my father’s when he was stationed in Guam during the Korean War. My eye was drawn to an ashtray that my father brought back from Guam. The ashtray made from carved dark mahogany was of an indigenous man wearing a large brim hat, his legs crossed allowing for the “ashtray” to sit upon them. The ashtray went right into my bag of “to keep” and remains to this day on my desk at arm’s length. I don’t smoke like he did, using his ashtray to empty the sweet smelling Borkum Riff tobacco from his pipe, but I stare at it conjuring up memories of him and imagine him a young man in Guam and the simple pleasure he must have had to escape into a souvenir shop to purchase this ashtray. I also visualize where this ashtray sat on our den glass coffee table. Once I imagine the placement of the ashtray my mind scans the surrounding furniture and plethora of feelings I experienced in that room. We had a drab army green patchwork sofa, a black leather Eames chair and an imposing 13 channel TV with no remote control. I am amazed at how this one object can conjure up so many memories. When the last remaining assorted trinkets lay on the dining room table, my brothers and I felt accomplished and at the same time void.
After junk removal services, tag sales and meetings with my brothers to distribute what was left, I claimed most of the photographs. There were hundreds of slide carousels, super 8 film and the necessary film equipment required to view the photographs. I pause because I am sad that my gadget, photography-loving father didn’t get to take selfies, shoot as many photos as he wanted on his IPhone without worrying about waste and most importantly that he didn’t get to capture his favorite subjects — his grandchildren. Yet, I knew that I would take what I could from the basement photo collections and one day pay homage to his passion that he shared with me. It took me years before I purchased a slide converter machine. The machine was cumbersome and time consuming so I quickly gave that up. The slew of photographs that it produced were grainy in quality, but beautiful nonetheless. There were photos of my Dad dressed in his crisp Navy uniform, with a white official looking hat and gloves, holding my Mom’s hands on a train platform. My parents were about to be separated for an unknown period, with the unpredictable nature of war, I found myself quickly shutting down my slide scanning operation as it was too painful to imagine. I allowed myself the time and space for some of these real and imagined feelings by honoring where I was at. I knew that when I was ready I would go back. Covid and the ensuing lockdown kept me stuck at home with many projects, one of which was to finally attack the collection of slides. I purchased a light box and found an app on my phone that would enable me to bring these 2x2 Kodachrome squares to modern photography life. Initially it took me some time to go through them. I would come across one of me nuzzled under my brother’s armpit, or a family trip to Paris in the 70’s when we drove to the french countryside and didnt have a hotel reservation leaving all five of us to sleep in the car overnight. It rained so hard that our windows fogged and my mom and brother played tic tac toe on the windshield. I searched my parent’s faces for resemblances of me.
What all of this historical digging did for me both made me sad, yearning for an opportunity to laugh across a table with my parents and siblings, and also grateful that despite the fact that it is difficult to recall what it was like to be that 11 year old girl in those photos, the overall feelings I am left with are ones that fuel me and are the core of who I am. Found objects from our past help to place us in time, with our associated feelings that may be difficult to access without something tangible to anchor us. I get to conjure up the feelings that perhaps my Dad had on the other side of the lens, see traces of a 70’s childhood with my long wispy hair and short shorts and feel grateful to have been part of a family that loved me. I wouldn’t have traded sleeping in a car in the french countryside for a comfy bed in a chateau. Those and many more of my collective life experiences make me me, and just like a tapestry is made from different color threads, I too am made from threads of experiences, some more colorful than others, but for sure tightly woven.