I should be napping
film, the analog kind.
***As always best to read my work in the browser - it is always a work in progress for the first twenty four hours, the neurodivergent mind wanders, and then back again.
I took two rolls of film to Citizens early November, which is usually within walking distance of my home. I got the call right after surgery that they were ready for pickup. I sent my ex husband to grab. When I asked where they were a few days later, he said - “you will be disappointed, not much there”. Now mind you these are medium format prints taken on a very vintage “point and click”, the Sawyer.
I have never used nor printed anything from it, before. And, at most, if I had loaded and rolled properly I would get 12 shots. A photography professor once lectured that if we got one good shot on a roll of 36, we had done well. Isn’t that a novel perspective in the world of I-phones and AI. I did take the camera with me to Livingston. Montana, this past April when honoring the sixth anniversary of my brother’s death. There is one shot on one roll of the Yellowstone tundra and nothing else. The other roll was eight, mostly blurry images. One stands out. A self portrait I took on the hottest day of the summer - record breaking heat. All I can see is Livi.
I sent to my mother - not his. She said “that is a horrible picture, all I see is an Indian.”
I responded back. “He was Creek”.
The part that is most eerie to me - is that I have taken his mother and his sister to this specific place on the river. His mom, my step mother, since I was seven, is also a Pisces. We are the family water signs, though we call my half sister the (modigliani) mermaid. We have always given my step mom lions, because she is born on the first of March. I just googled that March first is also our “National Day of Defense” - which is fitting on so many levels - her dad died in service and her family is well medaled with active duty careers and a General that died on Christmas. My side is pretty much AWOL. That would be a pretty agreeable term to describe a lot of both my matriarchal and patriarchal lineage.
I had not taken the time to wander back, that far, down river, since about the time they had visited over a decade earlier. Part of our families former regular adventures has since become a privately run “hip camp” destination. I don’t like crowds or places that folks pay to go to in droves. But this hottest day, my friend skipped work, mid week, and we drove to Eagle Rock. It is a place I will always remember because my step mother told my children she would always be there for them, while holding their tiny at that time hands. She was loud about it as I climbed and then jumped off a cliff. Because jumping into large masses of water off of high things has always been something that brings me joy. I remember that day also because it was a place my own mother would never have taken the risk to see. The car ride alone would have been too nauseating and ruined anything, naturally.
The way we see the world is shaped by a million tiny moments of hopefully just the right light and not always a pretty picture. But this particular picture, that one shot, definitely knocked the wind right out of me. And as always, I know my brother is still very much watching and still deeply a part of me.
If you want to catch up on things from past lives, I mean my other work, here are two related to Livingston below.
*Livi shows up for me in the birds. A feather when needed but usually a literal bird - just making sure I know - that even I am by far not a small being, comparatively in this huge universe.
**If you have made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read something with absolutely no intention, except to share the stories that keep shaping the changes that make me, me. I make mistakes, but I continue to learn from and embrace them as part of the flow.
I remember the analogue days. Often, I find myself missing certain aspects of those days.