always underground
march 28, 2008
since returning to illinois, i had the strange desire to find a particular photo of my father and i assembling a lego castle i received one christmas morning. i cannot say why finding this photo was important to me nor how it crept back into my memory (versus all the other photos i've been in or taken in my entire lifetime). with the many hours now available to use as i please (or as boredom strikes) i went to bookshelf of photo albums and flipped through them until i found it. it is not how i remembered it:
me and my father assembling a lego castle christmas morning
in my memory the photo is taken with a wider field of vision and our locations are swapped. i'm at the head of the table in the act of excited assemblage and my father is wearing his robe and looking thoughtfully, even proudly, upon his son. the actual photo, obviously, depicts differently: my father's in charge, looking disgruntled, unhappy, and out of focus, as i stare up at him totally unengaged with the legos (which is likely the largest shock of the photo - at the time legos were my life).
i don't know why i'm surprised at the discrepancy. it is another in a long line of mis-remembered memories; but for someone who considers himself in possession of an excellent memory, it's confusing to have been so wrong. it's possible, i suppose, that i'm remembering a correct photo, but the object of my father's and my attention is not the lego castle, but a chess board or freshly opened button down shirt or something else entirely.
that possibility though is of little comfort because the lego castle is important; the moment of christmas morning is important; the mood is important. all that combined into my memory of happily constructing my new legos which is completely contradicted by this physical evidence. as in this previous entry i'm confronted with the same question: what's the purpose of memories if they can so blatantly shift over time? is this memory, not necessarily cherished or used to buoy my spirits in low times, but still thought about, now useless in the face of this photo?
if the absolute truth of a moment is secondary to the emotional truth (which i ultimately think it is), i'm still at a loss at how to treat my excitement at hunting down this photo with the revelation that that moment's emotional truth has not been verified. instead, it's become muddled, led to disappointment, and is something i no longer wish to remember at all.
me and my father assembling a lego castle christmas morning
in my memory the photo is taken with a wider field of vision and our locations are swapped. i'm at the head of the table in the act of excited assemblage and my father is wearing his robe and looking thoughtfully, even proudly, upon his son. the actual photo, obviously, depicts differently: my father's in charge, looking disgruntled, unhappy, and out of focus, as i stare up at him totally unengaged with the legos (which is likely the largest shock of the photo - at the time legos were my life).
i don't know why i'm surprised at the discrepancy. it is another in a long line of mis-remembered memories; but for someone who considers himself in possession of an excellent memory, it's confusing to have been so wrong. it's possible, i suppose, that i'm remembering a correct photo, but the object of my father's and my attention is not the lego castle, but a chess board or freshly opened button down shirt or something else entirely.
that possibility though is of little comfort because the lego castle is important; the moment of christmas morning is important; the mood is important. all that combined into my memory of happily constructing my new legos which is completely contradicted by this physical evidence. as in this previous entry i'm confronted with the same question: what's the purpose of memories if they can so blatantly shift over time? is this memory, not necessarily cherished or used to buoy my spirits in low times, but still thought about, now useless in the face of this photo?
if the absolute truth of a moment is secondary to the emotional truth (which i ultimately think it is), i'm still at a loss at how to treat my excitement at hunting down this photo with the revelation that that moment's emotional truth has not been verified. instead, it's become muddled, led to disappointment, and is something i no longer wish to remember at all.