When I was little my mother would line me up in front of just about anything and take my picture.  I feel certain that somewhere in an album there is a picture of me looking all 1970’s taken at this very spot.  Only instead of a dark-eyed, curly-haired little girl I was a green/blue eyed, and strawberry-blonde little girl with straight hair and crooked bangs because my mother cut them herself.  I became resigned to her beginning most of our outings by taking a picture.  I have come to see she was really an archivist; preserving my childhood for me thanks to her love of taking pictures.  I remember thinking the place in this picture was so swanky as a kid.  I could not believe my little one when she remarked it was “fancy.”  Funny how somethings retain their stature while others fade with the passing of time.  It’s also funny how big things seem when you’re little and how small they seem once you’re an adult.  Time seems to move so slowly as a kid (waiting for a birthday or a holiday takes FOREVER) and yet when you’re grown they all seem to speed by.  How I cherish all the pictures my mother took.  They are a moment in time captured forever.  It’s quite amazing when you stop and think about it.  The American photographer Aaron Siskind once said:

“Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving.  What you have caught on film is captured forever … it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.”

I am thankful for photographs; they are snapshots of the past.