Time Arrested - April 16 2022

 

Time Arrested

April 16 2022

We thought of them as permanent.

But, of course, nothing lasts

and there is no forever.

Colours fade

celluloid brittles and cracks.

Tapes break,

and over time

the magnetic layer disintegrates

the shine wears off.

Snapshots wash-out

get torn or lost,

in the backs of closets

bottom drawers.

But when we watch old home movies

and are transported back

to a past we don't really remember

it's easy to believe

in preservation,

time arrested

in an Arcadian past

of the happy times and celebration.

We delight in the charm

of jerky shots

jagged motion,

the saturated colour

that endows every childhood

with a halo of heightened reality.

That makes us think

growing up was easy

times simpler, back then.

But nostalgia is bittersweet,

and as I watch, I'm also cringing

at my younger self

knowing how awkward he felt.

I want to go back and hug

that shy and lonely child

who hungered for love

but didn't even know it.

Who put on a fine show for the camera,

cleverly disguising

the anguished inner life

that lurked in the darkness inside him.

Because without light

film goes unexposed,

and beneath the surface

nothing is.

Old home movies

are good for awhile

before they're not.

But they only show so much,

through the narrow aperture

where we chose to point them

on those special days.

The halcyon times

that now just exist

in a fleeting image

unspooling on a screen,

in fragments of memory

that are surprisingly different

for everyone who was there.

Memories

that are will soon be gone forever

and most likely never were.

We never took home movies. In fact, there are hardly any photographs from my childhood, which was long before digital photography and smartphone cameras in every pocket.

But I was struck by an article in the weekend paper about an art gallery show of pandemic images, in which the highlight is apparently a reel of old home movies. The piece was accompanied by a couple of still shots from an era reminiscent of my own, and these beautifully conveyed the film quality that makes these movies so unmistakable. Home movies are merely a snapshot, and can easily sanitize the past. They are hardly documentary, yet somehow still give an impression of authority and unimpeachable truth:  how the selectively preserved moments seem so candid; how the saturated colours convey a sense of heightened reality; and how the jerky shots and off-kilter motion lend a certain authenticity.

What struck me most, though, was not only our conceit of permanence, but our longing for it: as if these movies could keep us alive forever. Which was the starting point of the poem, Because these old grainy jerky images seem to already have one foot in the grave. What was once state of the art now looks as anachronistic as an old black and white silent movie.

Where it went from there was purely stream of consciousness. Make of it what you will.