{"id":1315,"date":"2016-09-12T07:14:30","date_gmt":"2016-09-12T11:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/?p=1315"},"modified":"2016-09-12T09:37:10","modified_gmt":"2016-09-12T13:37:10","slug":"photographs-memories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/photographs-memories\/","title":{"rendered":"Photographs and Memories"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"RobinThe Queen of the Night glistened in the dark. It was late, past my bedtime. But she was so beautiful. Magnificent. People pointed and smiled, milling around her with flashlights.
\n\u201cThe cactus is blooming.\u201d That was the message on my cell phone. What? Why would I care about some cactus, I\u2019d wondered. Then I learned: Epiphyllum Oxypetalum<\/a>. They bloom rarely, and only at night. And by the first light of day the flower would wilt and die.<\/p>\n

The plant had only a few blossoms. In the dark, I photographed it up and down. I would immortalize it, post it on Facebook and Twitter, print it up BIG on premium archival paper, adhere it onto gatorboard<\/a> with a polycarbonate laminate finish and polished German silver frame. This was my new way of memorializing things.<\/p>\n

My old Omi Rosie used to tell me to take pictures in my mind if there was something beautiful or special I wanted to remember. No camera. Just in my head. So over the years I gathered \u201csnapshots\u201d in my head…. Like my first real kiss, on a summer night, the guy had a full set of braces that cut into my lips making them swell as we sat under stars, on a dock that rocked over a fishy-smelling black lake that lapped loudly…. And later, newly arrived at college, walking on the quad over fallen ginkgo leaves, yellow and stinking like dog-poo, my arms ached weighted down with just-bought textbooks and I told myself to remember this beginning of the adventure that was my own, not my family\u2019s…. Later still, my newborn son\u2019s eyes that could turn into any color…. \u201cSnapshots\u201d in my mind. That always worked for me. Because most of my life I hated cameras. \u201cThey keep me away from what\u2019s going on. Why would I want to put a box between myself and what I want to remember?\u201d I\u2019d say. That was before my daughter died. The daughter who loved photos.<\/p>\n

The night I visited the Queen of the Night I couldn\u2019t sleep. I drove back, through thick fog early the next morning before sunrise, to see the plant once more. And I thought of the other beautiful, short life I\u2019d witnessed at its end. Five years ago. On the morning I knew would be my daughter\u2019s last day, I filled my eyes with her face, to plant a \u201csnapshot\u201d in my head, to always remember. And that image, indelible in my mind, is infinitely more breathtaking than this photograph I took of the Queen of the Night in her last glory, just as the sun came up.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What do you do to always remember something beautiful, important, loved? Do photographs work for you? Or do memories?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Queen of the Night glistened in the dark. It was late, past my bedtime. But she was so beautiful. Magnificent. People pointed and smiled, milling around her with flashlights. “The cactus is blooming.” That was the message on my cell phone. What? Why would I care about some cactus, I’d wondered. Then I learned: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[702],"tags":[962,299,961,963,958,960,956,959,957],"class_list":["post-1315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-702","tag-celebrating-life","tag-life-is-short","tag-memorable-moments","tag-memorial-photography","tag-nightblooming-cactus","tag-photographs-and-memories","tag-pictures-in-my-mind","tag-queen-of-the-night","tag-snapshots"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t