Incoming... Home movie from Decemebr 25th, 1988!!!
I have always acknowledged my very first camera - 110 film Barbie Themed - bought at the Pic-n-Save down the road from my MeMa's house in Holly Hill, Florida. She would do peoples laundry for the extra money to get my film developed. God I loved that camera. It was my escape into my own world, a world I created.
But somewhere between 7 years old and 45 years old (wow that was a whole lot harder to type then I thought it would be!) I had forgotten about the 11 year old girl that received her first 35mm camera for Christmas.
When my dad died in May 2022, my brother and I were tasked with going through all if his things, organizing the memories and getting rid of the junk. We found 27 home movie tapes that had no way to play them to see what they contained, other then the chicken scratch written on the cases.
I decided that I would take the tapes back to Oklahoma with me and would figure out how to get them converted, and that's as far as these home movies went. Grief settled in for a nice long visit and I just couldn't bring myself to ship the tapes off anywhere. Hell, I couldn't bring myself to even go to the local camera shop and drop them off. My anxiety about loosing these tapes somehow become almost crippling - "What if the tapes are mishandled and you loose all the footage?!?!" that is until my logical brain finally kicked in - "Uhmm, you don't even really have the footage now, so what does it matter if the tapes get damaged. You can't loose something that you don't actually have!!" I finally settled on taking in 2 of the tapes, they were the earliest of all the dates I could read.
I was NOT ready for what I got back.
1. my dad started loosing his voice about 5 years ago, so to hear it again at its full capacity was wild.
2. my dad has had mobility issues for close to 7 years, and to see him up, walking around, working (he was a carpenter) made me well up with tears because it was him, 100% healthy. Something we had not had since 2009.
and the final thing that really threw me for a loop...
3. seeing 11 year old me.
I have been searching for a very long time for a missing piece of me. I have done the shadow work, I have (and continue) to go to trauma informed therapy, I meditate, I journal, I have researched the family tree, I do ALL the things... and yet there was still a missing piece of me that I could not locate!
I was frustrated to say the least.
Until I saw Christmas morning 1988. You see, I had asked for a couple things on my Christmas List that year, but the BIG thing I wanted was a camera. Not just any camera, but a 35mm camera. And not just any 35mm camera. A Minolta SR-T 101. I knew the cost of it, and I knew that my dad was barely making ends meet... but I wanted it so badly. I think somewhere in my inner knowing I had already learned the psychology of sales, because I listed 3 different cameras on my list that year. A Kodak, the Minolta, and some other camera that was ridiculously expensive. I fully expected to get the Kodak - and I would have been JUST AS EXCITED!
But my dad pulled it off and got me the Minolta.
Point of Impact #2 that made me a photographer