Freezeframe, Flashbacks, Images and Likenesses

Bread breaking by Bread:

“If a pictures paints a thousand words

Then why can’t I paint you? The words will never show “the you” I’ve come to know.

If a face could launch a thousand ships

Then where am I to go?

There’s no one home but you

You’re all that’s left me too

And when my love for life is running dry

You come and pour yourself on to me.

If a man could be two places at one time

I’d be with you

Tomorrow and today, beside you all the way.

If the world should stop recolvin’, spinin’ slowly down to die

I’d spend the end with you

And when the world was through

Then one by one, the stars would all go out

Then you and I would simply fly away.”

Seems all so simple. Doesn’t it? Do the right thing. Don’t do the right thing. The smirks and snickers and never ending bickers. The choices we hold in the palm of our hand.

Of one moment, frozen in time. In olden times, the reminder held its self on a small, square piece of paper. Taking days, sometimes week to develop into a life story, a changing life story. One to remember fondly. Capture a heartfelt.

Today.

A different story emerges of how the changing times tether us to our faults and failings binding us to our accountable natures. Explaining away the who, what where when and why we did what we did.

In the stead of another. For the gain of ourself. For the constant reminder life can be good if we allow truth to take precedence and leave the fictional story telling to the most high.

The CEO and boss of us all. Whether we choose to accept Him or not. Him. The Him Him. The Most High Him.

Contrary to the CEO, CIO, etcetera, etcetera. Of all things company. The business of the business. Chances are good they would be on board with explaining the story away any way possible. To get the job done.

Charts. Graphs and Oopsies aside.

One moment frozen in time. Supposedly or often referred to as “evidence.” Many years ago the whole picture taking activity was an event in and of itself. The gathering of people, the yearning for the photographic memory of a favored and favorite moment. Families together. Families apart.

The point, aim and shoot.

Indeed.

Families together. Families apart.

One picture.

One image.

One likeness.

One scrimmage.

To be or not to be in life for the long haul. Together.

To annihilate or not to annihilate.

That is the question.

To character assasinate or not character assainate.

That is the question.

One intentional photograph taken for joy. For pain. Has the potential to tear a person, tear a family apart. The proverbial painting of all things good and all things bad. Irony takes its place somewhere amidst the remembering. The gut punch. The tears. The happy moment.The sad moment. The “I didn’t remember moment” until I saw the photographic memory moment. Where did it come from? It just came across the waves………

Ugh.

The essence of a moment conveyed by one single shot. In olden times, an actual gun was used. Today. We each carry the weapon of mass destruction within our own person. We sometimes carelessly bring our own device and devices close—-in our own pockets. Unable to resist the blinking, winking and lights.

So. We look. We take a look.

It’s the easy way out. Seeing something is better for learning that having it described. Not so says, the sculptor of Crazy Horse……

”A thousand words leave not the same deep impression as does a single deed.” Henrik Ibsen.

A single deed. A single point, aim and shoot.

Can make or break a person.

Make or break a family.

There exist equivalents in life of photographic moments of testimony.

Artists such as Leonardo da Vinci wrote that a poet would be “overcome by sleep and hunger before being able to describe with words what a painter is able to depict in an instant.” An instant. Can change a lifetime.

Further. In 1861 Russian writer Ivan Turgenev “The drawing shows me at one glance what might be spread over ten pages in a book.”

A good sketch is better than a long speech. Depends on the involvement and outcome of the motivation and intent of the takes and the giver.

Where does that leave a moment in time? A moment etched in the memory. Where one look opens the flood gates or shuts down the chest and breath in an instant.

Perhaps. That was the point all along.

Who knows becomes anybody’s guess becomes another’s regretful memory of a moment of less than. Burying the flashback somewhere, anywhere so that the eventually the memory did not happen. When it did. After all, we have the proof, right?

‘Cept. What happened, happened. The moment captured. Damage control is funny like that. It allows the lie to take on a life of its own. We scrape and claw away at the truth until our bloodied nuckles cloud the photographic image away from our hearts and minds. Proving innocences becomes the full time job.

Any way possible. The moment. The picture. The image. The likes and likenesses are perceived as the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Perception is the flimsy foundational bridge of rushing to get from there to here. Or somewhere else where the memories of the moment won’t rule the day.

Again.

Expression of a perceived truth, is always anybody’s guess.

Hurt and hunger are two in the same. A thirst and a desire that causes us to seek a better way. With someone else. When the pattern repeats, we feel the familiar gut feeling that this is the same old same old. The ridiculous assertion that we can change the outcome of the frozen moment, the desperate flashback, the image that just won’t go away.

Ever.

No matter how hard we close our eyes, try to forget, blink away the fragmented floaters that slide across our visionary fields of wanting it to all go away.

The moment remains. An intruder we never invited “in” to our life, yet comes along for the ride just the same.

Desperate pleas in silence and whispers help to calm the nerves. The gut punch is another story. The realization that we could have done things differently, had a choice.

And.

We chose the path of least resistance.

And the regret, like the free frames flashbacks stick with us in the back of our minds like an unwelcome nuisance.

Welcome to my world.