Fascinating thing, Time. The mechanism by which the universe grows – for as each moment goes by there is more History in it…
We spend our lives sandwiched between the unchangeable Past and the blank void of the Future. Time rushes us along at the Interface where no-one knows what the future will hold until it is already past. We are tumbled into the dark unknown like startled crustaceans on the crest of a tidal wave.
And it never stops.
We can fight against it, push against it, turn and face backward, submit to surgery, retreat into memories – all to no avail…
No wonder we invented a way of catching little snippets of the impossibly thin membrane we inhabit and call the Present. Apt name really, since every moment we have as conscious beings is a gift...
Point a camera at the Present, push a button, and you have caught a little bit of it – like a child trapping flies in a bug catcher.
Time will drag me along until I can no longer keep up. I will be consigned to the past. Left behind. No longer aware of what is happening in the Present. That wonderful gift will be gone.
But…
Images I have snatched will carry on. They'll keep up. Someone still at the coal-face can look at them and see that once, long ago, my brother ate chocolate truffles sandwiched between ginger biscuits. They will see that somewhere Back There Madeline, my first love, was 19, beautiful and once looked coyly over her shoulder at me and smiled…
I have no idea why photo's are so comforting. Maybe we just get tired of being swept along relentlessly at the edge of Everything – forced to let go of every moment the instant it is gained and powerless to stop it – and take refuge in the knowledge that at least some of those moments can be plucked from the stream and taken with us…
...or maybe they are just pretty and I think too much...
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