Memory

An image…an image is only as powerful as the mind that views it. One person can see the beauty of nature while another see’s the decay and ending of life in the debris of the trees. It is the same photograph. The very same image but the effect depends on the person. I viewed a photo, it was like a million I had viewed before but something struck me. The beauty the elegance. The peace. I was 14 years old, dealing with hardships that only a fourteen year old girl can go through. Life had seemed unfair, against me, my family caused my misery and my friends saved me. Now, five years later I release I had a lot to learn back then and I still I have much more to go through. Even then I knew I had it lucky but the smallest things aggravated me; it was that picture that made me realise that the world was bigger than the small piece I had painstakingly craved out.

The photograph was one of many I had found going through old photos that were in a box in my parent’s room. The lakeside scene was one of tranquillity. Mountains in the distance, trees’ surrounding the lake and, the sun shining like it almost never does. However, the most striking thing about the photo was not the scene but one small piece. It was a part of the picture but not. If you were glancing at the photo you would have missed it but I didn’t it was my secret, my only wish, my secret tracks. What was so amazing about the photo was the train tracks that were under the water. They were only visible at a small spot in the corner of the photograph, Where the depth of the water was just threatening to loss the tracks. The moment I saw it I knew that one day I would visit the spot I saw. It was my one wish in the horror I called a life. I didn’t know how easy I had to even be able to believe in that dream.

Now, the picture is lost but it is seared into my mind as an image of pure bliss. It is the feeling of happiness. It is what I look for when I am near a lake and it is the reason I love the water. Water is the thing that connects us all. It is in us and around us at all times. It’s the thing we flock to on sunny days and the thing that makes us miserable on cloudy ones. It is our life line, the reason we are here and the reason why we are special. But I digress, that one photo had an effect on me and a powerful one. It was one of those moments I will remember for the rest of my life even if I never see it. It is the equivalent to a person’s favourite song or a moment you never want to forget. I cried with that photo, traced the tracks in awe and wished for the time when I would be old enough to be in charge of own life.

Even now I picture an image of a small girl crying in her bed, upset by a thing that is long forgotten. Hoping for an escape but wanting the best in life. I connected with that photo like I could never with a single person I have ever met.  I don’t know if I will be able to replicate that feeling with a person maybe that moment of complete understanding and freedom from the confines of life, is not a feeling a person can ever bring me but it was a moment that thought me who I was and it is the reason I wish I could but if I don’t at least I got to feel it.

I wish I could explain why I wrote this but I CAN’T. I can give reasons but they would only be a fraction of the truth.

It is the feeling, it is the music, it is the calm before the storm and it is me.