July 28 2003

I'm overdue for some housecleaning. Readers of my personal site, kisrael.com, know that I'm really trying to get my decluttering mojo working... partially in anticipation of possibly setting up in a much smaller apartment with my girlfriend Ksenia, partially to try to have stuff in my life take up a smaller footprint (physically, and in terms of "headspace"), and because to some extent the move from my house with Mo into a 2BR didn't force me to get rid of as much "shared" kind of stuff as it should have. Recently I found a series of black and white photos... No, not that kind of photos. This is going to be an odd little ramble. I'm not sure if I want anyone who's name I mention here (including Ksenia) to notice it, because they'll all get the wrong idea. I have a theory that hardly anyone in my life notices this small soapbox of mine, which is why I'm putting it here and not on kisrael. In the summer of 2003 our friend Brooke, Mo and I decided to spend part of an afternoon making pictures in the playground across the street. I think we made some great shots...I hadn't played with a "real" camera before, and Brooke really knew what she was doing. Of course, the next day I was an idiot and an ass, and Brooke was hurt when I gave a measured response to her when she came by with the prints. I don't remember where we had them developed, but she had put resources which she didn't have in abundance into getting them made. I should've gushed more. That's a lesson learned; for some folks support is best found in very non-critical and sometimes gushing enthusiasm. I dunno why the full-nelson in that one, I guess we were just being goofy. Or maybe it's rich with subext, who knows. Anyway, Mo and I had framed some of the photos from the day, and when we split, I took half and she took half. Then yesterday, I decided to reclaim the simple glass frames, either for charity or for reuse. I then scanned in the photos for the "kirkarchive" project, though I'll probably keep the originals (I'm a little superstitious about that.) So... This one hurts the most. Not just because of the feelings Mo and I had for each other, or the awful things we'd both do in the time after, but just because...I guess I'm amazed at how it feels like the awful and bleak future for her and me is completely invisible in this photo. It seems full of trust and sweet kindness, and that means I can believe in photos even less than I thought. Mo doesn't know why I reflect on our past the way I do. She misreads it as a kind of obsession with her, or some kind of living in the past. Maybe it is the latter, a bit, but if you value only the present and the future and not the past, you're going to get poorer as time moves inexorably forward. The thing about the past is how rose-colored our glasses can be for it. Hindsight is far from 20/20. When times get rough, and tough decisions need to be made, and relationship tensions rear their ugly head, I find it too easy to think about what I liked about my old life, and can ignore the parts that were obviously troublesome. Maybe that's why first love is so great... there's never an idealized past to compare it to.