clouds got in the way

Taking a journey through old photographs is quite a thing to do. One's whole long life zips by in image-bites. There was the cute Brit who said he'd always fancied me, hadn't I noticed? The guy I fell for at 17 who was my best friend's boyfriend! We married other people and circled around each other for decades until we finally had a long clandestine affair. We didn't have the courage to leave our families and with universal words of love and loss separated permanently. I remarried many years ago.
     Recently, because he'd written a book, I saw a picture of that other man I loved for so long. He'd changed. I hardly recognized him until I noticed the familiar smile around his lips, memory of easy laughter, irreverent quips. I showed the picture to my husband who had lately been talking about the girl he left in New York when he was 18. We marvel at how old we all are and how scary it might be to meet again. Who knows what the cute girlfriend with the red Corvette is like now. Or what life did to the young guy in the leather jacket. So. It seems that the best way to handle these unexpected vintage romantic blips in one's life is to let them flow, enjoy the memories, and henceforth ignore them.

And speaking of pictures, I came across my very first aht photograph, circa 1950s. Taken with the Brownie on a November day in upstate New York on a dairy farm that my sister-in-law's Italian aunt owned. My older brother and his wife invited me (a teen) to accompany them for a couple of days. I was totally thrilled. I'd never been away from my parents house in the Bronx and certainly never to the country where eggs came directly from a hen house and not Safeway. I took the picture while they picked apples. The tree looked forlorn and interesting in a Zen sort of way (altho I'm sure I'd never even heard the word). I felt like an artist after I pressed that shutter.
     I still vividly recall the sound of roosters crowing at dawn and the dormer room I slept in. The smell of bacon, biscuits, coffee wafting upstairs from the big old-fashioned kitchen where huge meals were prepared every day for workers and family. In other photos from that trip I wore a white cowl neck ribbed pullover. I have no memory of owning that attractive sweater. But maybe I will recreate it someday with yarn and needles and pick apples in another place and time. We may all look different but that's only on the outside.

Blown by many winds
Apple blossoms drift like snow.
How many more clouds
Will plunder my memories?