Coffee break photograph, June '06

I have been cleaning out the back house this last week. It's been hard work on many levels. First off, there's all that junk back there. I know when I was buying it here and there I didn't think that way, but then again, that's why they call them junk shops! Talking to my friend Ross put in perspective. When it's boxed and in some sort of order it's a breeze to move. But to look at it the way it is now, all loose and scattered throughout the house, all time estimates are thrown to the wind. I constantly find myself stopping in some contemplative spot, someplace that is way outside my head, someplace locked away deep within in my heart.

I came across about a dozen box cameras yesterday, all stuck in a long unused dresser drawer. I know that somewhere along the line I need to get into the habit of marking dates on those box cameras, something to give a clue as to when and where they were snapped. Right now they are all jumbled together and so I have no idea what's contained on those exposed rolls of film. Right now I can see and appreciate the value of a digital camera. I would love to be able to scan, enjoy, print off or delete those images. But in order to rescue them I'll have to take them down to Rite Aid or Walgreens. What a crap shoot.

They are going to be little time machines, though, no doubt about it. I know that that trip I took with my kids to California to see my mom back in November of '06 is contained in that pile. I know that day trip to Portland I took with Rosie is in there, too. I know that during times of extreme frustration with The Estranged One I took pictures of the messy house. Those snaps are in that stack, too. But what I will find mostly are many photos of the kids. Those pictures are already three years old now. Time flies and then those kids, those little kids, grow up and turn into something else: little people.

Time flies, indeed. Unearthing those goods in the back house reminds me all too well of plans and dreams and long, long days that have come and gone. I remember the day I took you back there the first time, to see the mess that went along with the toy soldier business. It was a few months later that you had a key to that space, and with that key came plates of cheesecake, thermos jugs of coffee and hastily scribbled notes. Time went on and that back house was to become my refuge. You saw that set up, too. We didn't dare test it out. Looking at it all was temptation enough.

That house. Gosh, what that house has witnessed. But what brought you to mind was a stack of notes I found stuck in a drawer, thoughts penned as I raced back and forth to Boise back in the winter and spring of 05 and 06. I came across those scribbled notes and knew that they needed to find a proper home in that satchel of ours. In doing that I stumbled across a couple photos from a camera I had developed last May, one that contained the last snaps I took of you. One photo was taken moments before your shift began on your last day of work at the branch. And the other was an arm's length shot of both of us taken before our June staff meeting, when you stopped at my house for a cup of coffee.

That image, now resting on the mantle piece, conjuered up dreams of you last night. I saw you living next door to me. You were older, and you had little boys over at your house. Were they nephews? Grandchildren? All I know in the dream it was strange to see you. All I could do was to look at you as you talked. I know that someday I will have that happen. That running into you moment. That long silence. That awe of finally seeing you again.

In dreams and photographs and in unearthing of old, long lost goods we visit old places of where latent energy dwells. That photo, that dream, all of it says that your presence is still felt here in my house and in my life. To look at that mantle piece is a verification of that. One peek at it and suddenly you appear. To be found once again in my dreams is not much of a stretch.

So, more shifting and moving of goods await me this afternoon. And while I know I won't find any more fresh or forgotten images of you, I look forward to seeing those photos. All of it somehow snakes it's way back, back to times filled with hopes and wishes and dreams. Dreams filled with a lifetime of you.

Your WHMB