Welcome to my journal! It echoes my thoughts and feelings as I journey through life. I hope you connect with what you read. If you enjoy this journal, please subscribe.
Before we spent the Easter holiday together, I hadn’t seen my parents in five months. It’s the longest I’ve ever gone without a hug or a kiss from Mom and Dad, and seeing them again was wonderful. Being with them in Berlin felt altogether unreal—we would chat and make tea in the morning, and everything felt just as it did when I lived at home, but then I would realise that we were all far, far away from the home I grew up in. This being a big holiday for us all (celebrating Easter, our reunion, and their trip abroad), we all took loads of photos. They took pictures of Germany, and I took pictures of them. As we explored Berlin, we would sometimes lose track of my dad. When I noticed that he was missing, he would invariably be standing in the bike lane, phone in hand, photographing something that had piqued his interest. As with many special occasions, I took far more photographs with my film camera than I did with my phone. It’s a habit I picked up in university. If I capture moments on film, it makes the memories feel a little more concrete to me. I managed to get through two rolls of film (which is about seventy photos), photographing the many, many antics we got up to. We toured Berlin, got a taste of the history and of the currywurst. We witnessed Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam. We walked Gent, Maastricht and Cologne flat. We hiked through German forests and bought Birkenstocks. In their seventeen-day visit, my parents and I each accumulated some two hundred thousand steps.
Part of my love for film is the anticipation. There’s a lot that has to happen before I can see the picture I took of my girlfriend and my parents walking across a bridge in the ancient part of Gent. First, I’ve got to fill the whole roll of film with pictures; that’s thirty-six smiles. Next, the film has to be developed. This involves many sensitive and potent chemicals that I won’t pretend to understand, but, vitally, this step turns blank plastic into negatives. Then, the negatives are scanned and I get an email with my digitalised film photos. It’s lots of waiting around, and all of the waiting around builds tension. I love it; it feels like the month-long wait leading up to opening my birthday presents. Today, weeks after my parents arrived in Berlin, I got a first look at my photos. They’re awful
.That’s what I thought when I peaked at them during my German class. I’m sure you can make out my dad standing next to my girlfriend (I have no idea what she’s pointing at, probably one of the several awesome castles in Gent) and my mom walking towards them, but it’s significantly less clear than I would have liked. Some of the photos came out very well, but most of them are like this one: a little washed out.
My mom says that I have a tendency to be hard on myself. After she read my journal on worry last week, my mom and I spoke candidly about how I might approach my feelings of doubt and concern. She also told me that I need to learn to be kinder to myself for the sake of my relationship with myself and my relationships with others. She’s right (like usual). In an effort to practice my internal kindness, I am trying to recognise that these photos aren’t awful. Perhaps they don’t all look the way I expected them to, but such is the world of film photography. They are far from ruined.
Earlier this week I was listening to a long voice note my best friend sent me. I had mentioned that I only really take film photos on special occasions, and he was advocating for taking film photos (or any kind of photo, really) of ordinary places, too. There is a park around the corner from the flat he stayed in when he and I studied together. He wishes, now, that he had a photo of it. He went there so often during his studies that it became a special place to him, representative of his time as a student. Through frequent visits, his neighbouring park became less ordinary. He says that now, though, whenever he remembers his park, it is a composite of all its best moments. The grass in his memory is from the day it was at its greenest. The weather, the sunset, the company—it's all perfect. I think, though, that I like to remember little imperfections. That’s another reason that film appeals to me—with all the scratches and noise and grain, it feels far more representative of real life than digital photos do. Life is beautiful and messy, not perfect. Neither are the photos of my holiday with my parents. That’s okay. Even though they’re a little blurry or grey, they are still treasured memories. Just like the people in them, the photos are flawed. And, I have decided, no less wonderful.
In the meantime, I am trying to worry less since posting last week’s journal on my difficulty with doubt. If you enjoyed this journal, please send it to someone you love.