Perfect Moments
This is going to be a short post on a happier topic. I was lounging around my den today when I suddenly took notice of some of the pictures I have framed and nearby. There is one picture in particular that caught my eye. There are six of us, not all dragons I might add, sitting in a tight cluster holding up small cartons of milk and cans of Steinlager, grinning like we just won the lottery. We would later come to call ourselves the Alphabet group after a late night conversation in which we used letters to indicate people rather than names. I could almost relay that particular conversation word for word, now seven years later, but it doesn't matter. It would fail to amuse any, but the people in the picture most of whom I have long sense lost contact with.
This particular picture has always been near and dear to me and my fondness for it only grows with the years. This photo perfectly captures a Moment. That's Moment with a capital M not to be confused with the lower case word that doesn't entirely share the same meaning. There are times in our lives when everything just seems to fall in place, and just for that moment everything is right with the world. These Moments usually involve family or friends and they are often fleeting, over before we recognize it. But when a Moment happens we carry the memory with us for the rest of our lives.
In the movie The Beach, stop the eye rolling it at least had a good message, Richard talks about the true meaning of paradise. It's not a place you go, it's moment in time with the right people. This is why I sometimes refer to these Moments as Paradise Moments sine that is what they are. Paradise is an ideal, not a place. It isn't lost, just well hidden throughout most of our lives and when we find it we often don't even realize it until it is gone. We can not not force a moment to happen, but we can plant the seeds, water it, and keep the weeds out. To do this we simply must live in the moment (that's the smaller case moment) when we are with family or friends. Push the worries aside and enjoy the company in others in its purest sense. The Moments will come.
As for the picture on my shelf, it has been years since I have seen any of those people. Most of them have once again become strangers to me. But I know that each and every one of us lived in that Moment and it won't be forgotten. There are five other copies of the same picture in the same frame somewhere our there. Maybe they are stored away in a box or lost in some corner of someone's home or office. But, I like to think that each one of us comes across the memory of that Moment from time to time and smiles. The Alphabet Group will never inhabit the same space again, but we live in that picture and we live in that moment, forever...
This is going to be a short post on a happier topic. I was lounging around my den today when I suddenly took notice of some of the pictures I have framed and nearby. There is one picture in particular that caught my eye. There are six of us, not all dragons I might add, sitting in a tight cluster holding up small cartons of milk and cans of Steinlager, grinning like we just won the lottery. We would later come to call ourselves the Alphabet group after a late night conversation in which we used letters to indicate people rather than names. I could almost relay that particular conversation word for word, now seven years later, but it doesn't matter. It would fail to amuse any, but the people in the picture most of whom I have long sense lost contact with.
This particular picture has always been near and dear to me and my fondness for it only grows with the years. This photo perfectly captures a Moment. That's Moment with a capital M not to be confused with the lower case word that doesn't entirely share the same meaning. There are times in our lives when everything just seems to fall in place, and just for that moment everything is right with the world. These Moments usually involve family or friends and they are often fleeting, over before we recognize it. But when a Moment happens we carry the memory with us for the rest of our lives.
In the movie The Beach, stop the eye rolling it at least had a good message, Richard talks about the true meaning of paradise. It's not a place you go, it's moment in time with the right people. This is why I sometimes refer to these Moments as Paradise Moments sine that is what they are. Paradise is an ideal, not a place. It isn't lost, just well hidden throughout most of our lives and when we find it we often don't even realize it until it is gone. We can not not force a moment to happen, but we can plant the seeds, water it, and keep the weeds out. To do this we simply must live in the moment (that's the smaller case moment) when we are with family or friends. Push the worries aside and enjoy the company in others in its purest sense. The Moments will come.
As for the picture on my shelf, it has been years since I have seen any of those people. Most of them have once again become strangers to me. But I know that each and every one of us lived in that Moment and it won't be forgotten. There are five other copies of the same picture in the same frame somewhere our there. Maybe they are stored away in a box or lost in some corner of someone's home or office. But, I like to think that each one of us comes across the memory of that Moment from time to time and smiles. The Alphabet Group will never inhabit the same space again, but we live in that picture and we live in that moment, forever...
posted by Jack Dragon at 1:18 PM
1 Comments:
This perfectly sums up my love of photography. I have many Moments that I have been lucky enough to capture on film as well as in my memories and though I may often lose track of them, as you say I like to think that each one of us comes across the memory of that Moment from time to time and smiles.
Perhaps in future you'll share more of these Moments with us humble denizens of this neutral place? Neutral in that none of us physically inhabits the space of the other.
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