Pretend You’re a Time Traveller
Your family photos are mini-portals in time pushing you forwards, backwards and sideways in your mind.
Old schoolhouse in Calico Ghost Town, California. Photo: Tanya Clarke 2016
Time is a Corridor
Lately, I don’t know why but I've been thinking about time.
Looking through my photos, I'm often struck by the length of time that's passed between one picture and another. Each one is like a mini-portal. I see childhood friends, babies who are now grown and people who died long ago. My memory plays tricks on me and timelines become muddled. Sometimes I see myself in places I don't remember at all.
This morning I'm trying to find one particular picture of my eldest daughter, just born. She's yelling at the world where she's suddenly found herself outside of my body. There she lays wrapped in a tiny blanket alone in a crib in the hospital. Her birth was long and arduous. The word labour could not be more appropriate. One final push and she was out, taking gasps of unfamiliar air. My efforts gave me a healthy baby. And a third-degree tear. And if you're not sure what that is, feel free to look it up. I guarantee that knowledge will make you wince and tighten your buttocks.
Sapphire and Steel
There's a British TV show which ran from 1979 to 1982 called Sapphire and Steel. I loved watching that show even though I never really understood what was going on. I loved Sapphire, her glamourous outfits, her telepathy, her no-nonsense manner. This is how I dreamed of being. The storylines themselves were dark and mysterious, something about heavy elements and irregularities in the dimension of time. Creepy stuff. People disappeared. Often. Children were stolen from photographs. Parents vanished into thin air. And always, always there was someone around repeating a nursery rhyme or a poem in an eerie way.
I've found some episodes on YouTube and taken to watching them again. I find myself laughing and being spooked all at the same time.
Sapphire: There is a corridor and the corridor is time. It surrounds all things and it passes through all things. You can't see it, only sometimes. And it's dangerous.
Boy: This corridor. Can you enter it?
Sapphire: No. Not in the way you imagine. You cannot enter into time. But sometimes, time can try to enter into the present, break-in, burst through and take things. Take people. The corridor is very strong. It has to be but sometimes in some places, it's weakened like fabric, worn fabric and when there's pressure put upon the fabric, time reaches in and takes what it wants. And we think time has broken into that room, broken through and taken away your parents.
Episode 1 - Escape Through a Crack in Time
Yikes.
I mean, there’s a story right there. No wonder I couldn’t get to sleep on a Saturday night.
Pretend You’re an Explorer
You can investigate this theme of time in any way you want. You could use this week's photograph as a start.
Who is this girl?
Where is she going?
Does she exist in this time or another?
Has the photograph captured her?
Is she trapped?
Is the photograph part of a set in an old album, or in a digital one in the cloud?
Are you going backward, forwards or sideways in time?
Or maybe none of this is true.
If you get stuck don't panic. You're just caught in a moment. How about you write from there?
Until next time.
