recollection on a family album

It was in the late 1920’s when I remember it best. The pace of life on the surface was calm, pollution was minimal, and leaves fell silently on the pavements of humid days and windless nights. The black and white photographs, yellowing, fading faces, and bent memories reverse me to childhood expressions of cross eyed, tongue vibrations, and encircling thumbs pressed in ears.

“Find me if you can!”

I sit and wait for these moments to envelope me, as it happens reopening my archived life w/ its gummed corners of black triangles holding on to ghosting impressions. The sheen of the images retain. Beyond the creases and peeling upturned edges, I look closely to detail. But it is difficult to see faces. There is more landscape than bodies. Thin families. It is minimal. Without saying.  In the few images that exist with people, expressionless faces stand and stare into the camera with a deep sadness spoken in their eyes and layered on their hands. They look at me asking for help. And forgiveness.

“I wish I could have given you more in life, my child.”

It is difficult to look back at them. Because I know they tried. I see the rail thin figure next to them. Me. I was a such a little kid.  My figure would rarely show up in the pictures. I would fade into the background like an amorphous cloud in the vast open fields. Clouds change. My parents stood next me, hands to their sides, and waiting for their command.

“Work hard. Be good. And Eat.”

Primitive words. But,

“Do you love Me?”

Without saying. Deepening faces, recollecting difficult upbringing. With a half grin, I take the last page and return it back to the beginning. My mom, my dad, and me. An only child. The only child. The lonely child. I press my hands together then compress into a fist. I tense for a while and then let it all go. The family photo album. It lays on my lap for moment before I stand up and put it away. In a closed drawer. Away from my thoughts. Out of sight.

I turn around and wipe my eyes of its grip. I reach for my camera. I set the timer. I rush into the picture and stand in front of my one story house, light gray, standing tall, and forget to smile. But, I am in focus and the detail is clear. All too clearly. I am who they made. I am why I am. And I hear them always.

“My hope to you when I am gone, is that you knew where you came from.”