Why do old people take pictures?
I’ve always assumed that there are two phases in life.
Phase 1: Picture taking
Phase 2: Picture reminiscing
I’d say most of my imaginations about being old involve sitting by the fireside, leafing through photo albums and reading all of my old journals, finally culminating a lifetime of thoughts and experiences into sweet sage wisdom. (In my head, the photo albums and journals are actual books stacked next to my armchair, although I suppose it’s more realistic to assume I would be swiping at a screen or batting my eyelids at a hologram or something… but that’s not so romantic.) This is the scene I am thinking about when I snap a picture of the sun setting on a river or of a pretty plate of french fries. It's that old woman, wrinkly grey-haired me, that I am preserving all of these moments for.
I’ve always assumed that there are two phases in life.
Phase 1: Picture taking
Phase 2: Picture reminiscing
I’d say most of my imaginations about being old involve sitting by the fireside, leafing through photo albums and reading all of my old journals, finally culminating a lifetime of thoughts and experiences into sweet sage wisdom. (In my head, the photo albums and journals are actual books stacked next to my armchair, although I suppose it’s more realistic to assume I would be swiping at a screen or batting my eyelids at a hologram or something… but that’s not so romantic.) This is the scene I am thinking about when I snap a picture of the sun setting on a river or of a pretty plate of french fries. It's that old woman, wrinkly grey-haired me, that I am preserving all of these moments for.
So naturally I am confused to see anyone over the age of 70 fumbling with manual zoom lenses and peering at the world through a viewfinder.
This is a photo I sneakily took of the old man in front of me on the plane. He must have taken at least three dozen photos from his window:
When are you going to look back at that photo, sir? What are you still collecting memories for? It seems to me a bit like pouring water into a bucket with a hole in the bottom. But I’ve never understood the things old people do — how could I possibly? I won’t have the chance to culminate sweet sage wisdom about The Meaning Of It All until I’ve stopped taking photos myself.
The sole motive behind all of my picture-taking (and writing, for that matter) is a latent fear of memory loss. Creative expression, artistic value, reflection, emotional catharsis, social sharing etc. are mostly happy byproducts. There are plenty of things I document that are never edited or posted, that are neither insightful nor beautiful. I must have a Russian novel’s worth of the world’s most mundane lists in my Google Drive folder labeled “Writing.”
e.g.
Mar 22, 2012
-morning run in the park
-last day before taper, feeling fit
-flat tire on the way to work
-called Ali about travel plans
-Dinner out with the roommates. Japanese restaurant downtown. Way overpriced.
-Started Infinite Jest
Keeping these records is a fruitless exercise that I can’t stop doing any more than a baby can stop sucking on a pacifier. Rationally, I am aware that even wrinkly grey-haired me won't be able to juice any wisdom from 80 years of done to-do lists. But when I go for a period without documenting and then try to think back on what I’ve missed, my lack of recall frightens me. It's like a small segment has been erased from my timeline.
Traveling only intensifies the impulse — since each experience is so singular and fleeting, they are even less likely to stick in brain storage. I just returned to California after spending a few weeks in London and I can’t sleep for the itch to quickly capture the quicksand memories of my time in the city. (Also my body still thinks it’s 11:00 A.M. even though it is 3:00 A.M.)
The first person I met in London was my host Heath. Heath looked like what Benjamin Franklin would have looked like after a couple years developing a moderate cocaine habit. He was bald on top with a few strands of oily locks falling just short of his shoulders. His wiry circular spectacles matched his wiry body frame — all cheek bones and elbows and one long pinky fingernail. One cat was called Zipper. The others scampering around the house were never formally introduced to me. Heath had the Australian knack for leaving “h”s off of words like “he” and ending his sentences with rhetorical questions. But if not a scholar, Heath was certainly a gentleman — helping with my bags, pouring me a cup of tea, and offering a detailed verbal treasure map of the neighborhood’s best pubs: “You’ll go out just to the corner here and then carry on past the little statue at the end of the main road. There’ll be a cigarette store to your right and then, if you keep on ahead past the old fire station, you can’t miss it just there.”
According to AirBnB, my second host was named “Sylvie,” but when I arrived at the two-bedroom mini-apartment in Marylebone, I was met by six Italians and one Scott, none of whom introduced themselves by that name. The Italians were young, mostly gay, all pierced and dyed some shade of citrus. As far as I could tell, they all shared one kingsize bed. The Scott was maybe in his 60s, also gay, and—while the noisy vie bohème-ers passed around bowls of pasta and marijuana in the kitchen—he kept mostly to himself in the storage-closet-turned-bedroom, except to occasionally venture out to refill his champagne glass with chilled Prosecco and make a nostalgic and endearing comment about the beauty of youth.
Marianella liked to ask me the meaning of English words like “prancing” and “glitter” that she heard in songs. Nícolas like to tilt his head and say “Awww” every time I spoke. Alberto liked to call me Darling and insisted on giving me a haircut — for which I was, admittedly, long overdue. I’d like to say that was the first time I let a man shave my head under the auspices of a free haircut…. but that would not be true.
June 2008:
This time was less drastic:
People say that London has no soul and I think I know what they mean. There are simply too many types of people to talk about the “Ethos” of the city in any coherent way. As a whole, it is a ruthless place. It is the kind of place that might knock you down and mow you over if you don’t have your wits about you (literally, in the case of bikers, and figuratively in the case of anyone earning a sub-executive salary who might wake up one morning to find themselves flat broke). But as much as people moan about the weather and the prices and the Tube, I think people find London’s grandeur liberating. Even I — the sniper’s eye for anything even remotely resembling a cliché — couldn’t pin down a stereotypical Londoner.
Coming from San Francisco, where literally e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g has been stamped, labeled, satirized, ironically iconized, and hashtagged, the slightly dizzying cosmopolitopia of London was actually a breath of fresh air. There is no headlining war between Mainstream vs. Counterculture vs. Trendy vs. Hipster etc etc etc…. No one seems to give a damn.
London says, “I don’t care who you are - stay to the right of the escalator, the left of the bus lane and get the hell out of the way.”
