2 posts tagged photos

I was in Los Angeles last weekend visiting someone who’s going through some stuff. Actually, it’s more than some stuff, but the stuff is beside the point. This person has a friend in LA who I’d never met in person before, but who invited us over to his apartment to relax and talk.

The apartment is situated near the ocean in Santa Monica. Once our car was parked in the underground garage, the owner walked to the elevator and pressed a button with the letters ‘PH’ on it. 

I’d normally be drawn to the fact that the apartment number has a PH on it or that it’s in a great part of LA, or the fact that, for an apartment, the expanse of the entryway would match the size of a decent hotel room. But I wasn’t.

The frames were the first thing I noticed when the double doors opened. Dozens of frames, covering several walls from corner to corner. He and his wife have a family. They’ve been together for decades. They’ve raised several beautiful children, all successful and bright. A grandchild followed.

The contents of each frame tell a sliver of their story. The story of a parent who left the world too soon. The meeting of a man who would one day be called President. The first dances at a wedding. Where a kiss took place after a walk on a beach. The pride of watching a child graduate from college. The twirls of kids on some green grass against a yellow sun. I saw it all through these frames.

We take lots of pictures these days. A camera is never very far away. But most of them never see a fraction of the light it took to produce them in the first place.

All these frames got me thinking about how easy it is to move a relationship from stranger to acquaintance - shake a hand and ask how they’re doing. The stories behind the images on his walls, however, made me feel like a friend. Maybe that’s why he had us into his home in the first place. To catch a glimpse of his life through the frames that made it.