chairs.

There is nothing quite so dangerous to one's efficient time management as a box of old photos.

I should really say 'file of old photos', as this would be a more accurate description of the snare which caught me today. And to be perfectly fair, they weren't altogether old. I am a sap, plain and simple. Nostalgia is better than lock and key if you'd like to keep me in one place for an undefined length of time. I find photos more odd now than ever. It never really struck me before what odd little concepts, what strange snippets of time they are. You cannot capture a single moment of time and save it, but you can take a combination of light and color and preserve it so as to remind your memory what happened on, say, September the 9th or April the 3rd. I cannot imagine what a mind-boggling concept photography was to it's pioneers. As it tends to be with most great inventions and innovations of the past (and present), I can imagine it began as little more than a novelty. "Yes, a lovely idea, old chap - but what do we do with the thing?"

And now. Yes, furthermore - today. I find myself on this ridiculously complex device looking at these shadows of time. Some candids, many forced smiles.
There are a few which are redolent with a perfect happiness. It's these that catch and keep me. I can almost feel and taste and see the whole scene. Maybe it is because, in that moment when the light touched my face and you held the camera aloft, I willed myself to remember: There is goodness, there is joy. But it isn't always, and it isn't everywhere. Sometimes I wonder if we would all live easier without having tasted it. But you cannot go back.


What can be done?


"If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair. CS Lewis.