A Writing Challenge

Amy Sorenson has started a Writing Challenge on her blog. I took one of her BPS journaling courses and loved it. Ever since then I’ve subscribed to her blog and decided I’d join in on some of the challenges. I had no trouble writing to the first prompt.

Writing Prompt: Write about a photo you wish someone had taken

    I think that we have clearer memories of the experiences we have pictures of, because the pictures help us involve another sense (vision) with the memory. But I also think that the majority of people twenty or thirty years ago didn’t think about taking pictures the way we do now (obviously, digital cameras have a huge impact on how many photos we take and what we photograph), so we don’t have very many pictures to help jar our memories. Maybe this writing prompt will help you remember something you’ve forgotten. You might want to give some of the back story before you write about the wished-for photo, like I did here. Happy writing!

I wish someone had taken pictures of my mom. She died when I was twenty, and I don’t think I ever saw a camera in my father’s hands. There are so few photographs of her and the few I’ve found recently were taken by me as a child. They are of poor quality and most of them are very unflattering. One in particular is of her washing dishes. She’s not smiling and she looks so tired. It’s just not the way I remember her. She was always self-conscious about her weight, and she never looks comfortable in the few photographs I have. One exception are some black & white snapshots taken on her wedding day.

Actually, my memories are pretty vague, and Amy is correct—many of my memories are tied to photographs. I’ve never been one to recall past events with much clarity or detail. (Probably one of the reasons I think scrapbooking is so important.) I do know from stories that my mom worked too hard and tried to do too much. My father once sat me down after I had made a comment about all I needed to do and told me that I should back off my list. He said my mother’s expectations of herself were so high that she caused herself a lot of unnecessary pain. It’s taken me a long time to put my To Do list in perspective, but I hope I’ve learned a lesson from that story. And I do try to get my camera in other people’s hands so there is a better record of my presence in our family.