Where the magic happens...

I save everything. Cards, notes, tickets from concerts and shows long forgotten about, but mostly pictures. Over the years, I've taken thousands of photos. I was going through a box of things while moving recently and came across a bunch of photos from my childhood and fell into a nostalgic trance as I flipped through those aged pictures. Something in the air changed around me as I explored those memories from so long ago, times that seem so much simpler now, but surely had their fair share of ups and downs. One particular picture stood out. An old polaroid, aged into a muted sepia over time. It was a picture of me and my grandmother, she in her flowing summer dress, and me on her hip probably at 3 or 4 years old trying to block the sun with my hand turning what I'm sure was a smile into a slight grimace. We were standing in front of a house, whose house, I don't know. As hard as I tried, I could not remember that day, but there it was. There we were. What I did remember was the smell of her perfume, thick and floral warmed in the summer heat. I remembered the cool feel of the rocks that I would always gather as we walked in the park near her home to put on the dresser only to find them thrown out the next day. I remember sitting on her porch reading the Sunday comics that she saved for me all year until I came to visit. See, I'm an Army brat. My dad was a career military man which led to us moving around my entire life. Parts of my life are a huge blur of school after school, home after home, friendships that grew apart with time and age. There are so many vivid memories that I have of my childhood, but it's the moments that I don't remember that take me to that special place trying to piece together my memories. Those moments buried deep inside our mind that come pouring back as vividly as when we experienced them. Maybe that's why I've saved these mementos all these years, lugging them from place to place, holding onto a piece of something. Some memory, some feeling. That's the magic of photography. Capturing a moment. A moment that will never come again. A moment that may have been forgotten, but are nonetheless a part of our journey. This is where the magic happens. Welcome to The Smokeshow.