No More Background Memories

As I was recently cropping some of my photos, I had a thought...was I cropping away memories?

One of the things I most enjoy about looking at old photos are the things I see beyond and around the main subject...furniture, cars, toys, that original box of Corn Flakes...

As I was cropping my photos, I realized I was cropping away much of those things I so cherish in old photos, and it made me a little sad.

Fifty years from now, my grandson's memory will not be jogged by the red Mustang just at the edge of the neatly cropped picture of him and his brothers. He will not say, "Oh, yeah, remember that old red car Grandma used to drive?" I have cropped away the Mustang to have a better configured photo of the children. Will they remember the "red racecar" they always begged to ride in?

My daughter will not look at the picture of me in the kitchen and remember the spices that line my stove, or my half-full glass of water sitting on the back of the kitchen sink. She will not say, "Remember how Mom couldn't bear to pour water down the drain after she lived in Korea where water was so precious." She will not remember the color of my tile or the way my refrigerator was covered with pictures of my precious children and grandchildren. She will only see me standing in one corner of the room that was, in its entirety, so much a part of every family gathering.

My great-grandchildren will not look at pictures of their moms and dads and chuckle at the toys they used to play with, or have proof that their parents' bedrooms were just as messy as theirs will be. They will only see the smiling faces of the children their parents once were, but will have no idea about the objects that impacted their everyday lives.

Our families in the future will only see neatly cropped pictures of faces, tidy memories that leave out all the messiness of everyday life. They will only see an illusion of what life was really like for us...just the bits and pieces that we allow others to see in our photos. The essecnce of our lives with all that surrounds us will be lost forever, except to our own memories.

I am going to stop cropping all my pictures. Some will be meant for cropping, and some will be left to show future generations how I really lived. I want them to know I didn't live a perfectly cropped life, but that I was a real person surrounded by the people and the things I loved...even if that person is only half a head or part of an arm in my picture...the fact that they were there and someone in the future will know it is enough, and better than a perfect picture.