I've been going through old family slides. Thousands of them. Slides that span four decades.
My dad was a hobby photographer and since, so he always said, slides produce the best quality images, my entire childhood, every family gathering and every place we traveled were captured on slides. (Well, except for the grainy black and white Polaroid photos Mom took when Dad was in Vietnam and Okinawa.)
At one point, the slides used to be in date order, stored neatly in the special storage trays. Over time, the sequence shuffled as the slides were rotated in and out of the few carousel trays we had for the projector. Then there was the time back in the late 1970s when I dropped both trays and the lids popped open, dumping every single slide into a messy heap on the floor.
So I've been sorting, documenting, purging and organizing.
Sorting by people, places and events. Writing the names, dates and locations on each slide. I'm not sure if anyone will ever look at them again, but if they do they'll know who, where, when and what they're looking at.
Purging was hard at first. I was hesitant to throw way a single slide. I struggled with being the keeper — or discarder — of our family history. But when I was knee deep in the slides, I realized some slides just needed to go. There were countless duplicates. Slides of people Mom and Dad knew in the late 1950s without any names or places. Images that were too dark or too blurry. The trash pile grew.
I chuckled when I came across the slides from our November 1975 cross-country drive. We drove from Virginia to California on the way to Dad's next duty station in Hawaii. There were dozens of blurry and distant photos I snapped from the backseat as we speed along Route 66. I wondered if Dad ever regretted handing his camera to a sad, but shutter-happy, 14-year old. I'd just left behind all my friends, and somewhere early in our journey, discovered that the boy I had a crush on had secretly put his ID bracelet in my purse. I cried all the way to California (and beyond). I did find, and save, some clear images of our journey and noted on the cardboard frame "somewhere along Route 66."
Midway through this project, I realized something. For the first time ever, as I viewed the slides of myself as a child, I wasn't critical of my image. While my smile has always been genuine and easily given away, I have always been unhappy with the way I looked. Too goofy (argh, those cat-eye glasses and fashions of the mid-60s!) Too ugly (why couldn't I look like so-and-so?) Too fat (oh, those teen years!) Instead of enjoying the memories captured, I've always avoided looking at any photo of myself; I didn't like the girl looking back at me.
But this time, it's as if I was seeing myself through different eyes. I saw a sweet and innocent young girl smiling back at me. I saw mischief. I saw giggles. I saw good. I even saw cute.
This change of perspective is an answer to prayer. I've been praying for God to break strongholds and correct my lifetime of tainted perceptions. I have even paused on some of the pictures, studying the younger me, whispering truth to her wounded heart, and promising her that God would make beauty from ashes…just wait and see!
When I finish organizing the slides, I plan to scan them and digitally share with family members. Because Dad was right: slides do produce the best quality images. I have countless childhood photos to prove it.
Remember the days of old,
Consider the years of all generations.
- Deuteronomy 32:7
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