So how far back can you go and still touch the source memory? Asking this question I'm suddenly bombarded with the strangest glimpses - a rapid slide show of moments fires past my mental screen without context or any real trigger.
You want to reach back and remember the first joy. You want to tap into a catalog of well preserved moments of fun and kindness and tenderness. Instead you get window frames without walls. Context is loose at best, unavailable at worst. You long to recall Christmas at 2 years old, instead you get driveways with bicycles. Photos from the era tell you had fun on your 1st birthday and that you looked adorable on the first day of kindergarten. What you remember is the leather of your grandparents chair or how the tile in your bathroom looked like crosses and 8-bit spaceships.
I love the new Nostalgiatech that seems to be popping up. My new favorite app is called 8mm. It's a video app that throws a filter to match some fuzzy memory. You can even mute the sound and add the noise of a projector.
We had an 8mm camera when I was a kid. I think it was 8mm, it might have been fancier than that. It used real film that had to be processed. We had a cool little projector that required the know-how to feed the film into the thingy that looped around the little doo dad. It was all very technical.
We'd create a theater. A sheet would be hung, lights would be extinguished or faded. Then there was the moment of fascination as suddenly your very own image was on the screen. Moments ago, you'd watched a silent Donald Duck film, or a clip from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. You could get movies like that from the library. We'd watch these produced films and my dad would narrate, doing the voices of the sailors in some silly fashion.
But the family films were the main event. Cookouts and reunions and Christmas trees and birthday candles. These movies weren't narrated, they had a live commentary track from my mom and dad. For me these moments were imbued with special value. My birthday was important enough to film. Donald Duck on a camping trip, Kirk Douglas battling a giant squid, and my birthday party were on equal standing. The proof was on the wall in front of me.
37 years before we took pictures of Penne Pasta, filtered them to look old, and posted them online for all to see, we had to be choosy with what we deemed important enough to capture.
Soon enough the 8mm gave way to the video camera. The lights could stay on and there was no need for voice overs and commentary because the sound worked just find. You could see yourself on the television. That felt special too, but now I see that there was something missing. Some of the senses were being denied.
Watching the old 8mm movies, the room got warm from the bulb and you could smell the film heating up. You could see the dust in the light of the projector. You could hear the reels ticking along. The movies were silent but the moment was not. The family talked when it was time and hushed when a now dead family member waved at the camera.
The whole house was under control of the 8mm projector. Light from another room was intrusive, stray sounds weren't welcome, not even music. You didn't just pop-in a tape while world operated indifferently around you. You dedicated the space and time to remembering to remember.
A projector is special because in order to get the best view, you put it behind you. You split the room so no one blocks the light. In order to perfectly view the past, you had to leave it behind you and look the other direction. Then be still and let the images flood to the front. Televisions and cell phones and laptops don't demand this attention from us. They do what we tell them. You can pause live TV now. If you paused a film for too long, you'd burn the frame. The images of the past need to keep running or you could risk losing them.
I don't know what my first memory is. But some of the earliest are those nights, warmed by the bulb, fascinated by the image. We'd filmed the moment knowing that when we looked upon it we'd be seeing the past. It's not a sheet, it's a screen. It's not a screen, it's a window. It's a window without walls. The only context is that we were there.
My earliest memories may be of the act of remembering. There are no films of us watching the movies. When I remember sitting in my rocking chair, watching me race my cousins on my Granny's property, I'm tapping right into the source. I don't remember the race, but I remember the remembering.
Perhaps that's better.
Hold Fast,
Caulfield
No comments:
Post a Comment