When I think about life, the special moments between my husband and I, my childhood and my current home in Butte, Montana, I think in still images. Sometimes those images are in photo albums are ones I’ve taken and put online. Sometimes they don’t exist, but are memories in my own mental picture album. They are mostly filled with love, laughter, and those strange moments you just aren’t sure why you remember!
I can visualize my dark dungeon-like basement in my old house in South Dakota, with its bright red, yellow and blue checkered carpet. My brother called me a toddler when I was, well, a toddler! I was so angry with him and of course my Dad took my side.
I remember my husband and I’s first date snowshoeing up Maud S Canyon. It was brown and muddy with little snow, but I still borrowed his over sized blue snow shoes. The sun went down and all we could see was the glimmer of our flashlights, the city lights and the sound of Billy Bob (Robert’s black lab) frolicking in the snow and rolling in dead animals.
Today I see photos everywhere I go. In the crowded supermarket where a mother kisses her child on the thumb he got squished between the cart wire. At a restaurant where a couple is probably on their third date and the guy is giving the girl that look of adornment. The way the morning light twinkles off of the snow-covered trees in Butte and shines through the smoke from people’s chimneys.
I feel so blessed to be able to see these moments and capture them for the people who feel they are as important as I do.