I have many secrets from myself - will I manage to keep them?.
Stanislaw Jerszy Lec

{Translated from the Polish by Jacek Galazka}

Stone still, he was lying in his unexpected and final abode. His eyes no longer gazed, his sight frozen under leaden eyelids. His skin color was artificial, applied by the embalmer. Death tripped him half way through the expected life span. That month, Death struck three more times around the neighborhood. A child on the brink of being born. She sought breath and light, smiling faces, tears of joy, warm embraces, nurturing milk, instead she encountered darkness and eternal stillness. He, the second voyageur for eternity, on the other hand, fell from the side of the mountain in a short and deadly flight, which took him from the summit of granite and ice to the steely foot of the mountain. He had just entered the age of self-discovery, searching for who he really was. The mountain was his mentor and teacher. He died in its lap. And Death took also into its mantle an elderly woman, ending her journey far away from home but surrounded by a large and loving family. At funeral homes, to give back some semblance of life to the deceased, a series of snapshots on a bulletin board displays a life summary. The various chapters. The important milestones. The happy times. The forced smiles. Like the last resume. The ultimate curriculum vitae. Philosopher Kathleen Dean Moore says In The Sun magazine: "It's our memories that make us who we are.....These memories and sense impressions of the landscape are the very substance of my self." Death obliterates our memories and prevents us from testifying any longer to whom we are. It now lies solely upon others and photographic images to tell who we were. Photographic images are useful artifacts to illustrate where and when. Documentary photography. In a railway station, sitting across me, a group of teenagers is saying good-bye to a friend. The one leaving said to the others: "While I am gone, take as many pictures as you can so that I will not miss anything!" But the value of the photographic image is rather limited. Photos are descriptive but non-encompassing. Here it shows Marshall with his family. A happy bunch. But the photo fails to tell us that husband and wife were already on the brink of divorce. Tragedy does not always register on the snapshot; rather it is nearly always absent. In the subtext of the photographic image there are many signs which will never be deciphered. The photograph is a simplifier. It is like a frozen specimen from which we may extract some useful information, but from which Life is gone. They can help us conjure up some long buried important details of the context. They can be reminders. But their use is very limited because their "subtext" is very shallow. Using photographs to bring forth forgotten memories can be very useful. My very own memories are made up of what I still remember, what others remember of me, a collection of silver images, and now digital images. Some memories are also scripted into the artifacts surrounding me; little trinkets can be signifiers of some past endeavors, past events, past interests. I am also very much revealed by the shape of my personal environment. I am my environment. Memories are also very much in the things that I have created. Creation is memory in action.
To paraphrase Dean: "I remember therefore I am". But my memories are short in factual details but rich in sense impressions. I do not remember the specific scents of the soil composting in the forest of my hometown during my childhood and of the flora coming to life in the Spring. But I remember them entering every cell of my body. They meandered in my veins. They occupied my being. I felt at one with the local geography and botany. That profound connection is still vivid. Like a geographer mapping the territory, I want to take stock of my fadded and fadding souvenirs. The present journey is, before anything else, to tabulate what is left of past sense impressions of places, of the people occupying these spaces, times, objects, signs, vague feelings, strong intuitions, and dreams as signifiers of who I am. How I was shaped and how I shaped my personal space.

After my mother died, while looking at our family photo album, I realized that I did not remember all the anecdotes and facts tied to the images I was looking at. Sadly I had not, while it was still possible, asked my mother all the questions which I posed now. And when I had asked the questions while she was alive I had little recollection of the answers she gave me because of a defective memory and because I had NOT taken notes or kept a diary which would have been very helpful at this point. So, in this snapshot, was my sister at her baptism. With the help of some who still remembered, I could name some people in the large group attending the religious ceremony. But some will be anonymous for ever. What space were they occupying in my parents' life? What was their connection to other people in this photograph? Where did they go to celebrate this occasion? My mother who had a formidable memory would have given me the details I was seeking. I wanted to give some substance to a photograph which left me wanting. The black and white photo had lost some of its life because of a lack of depth in the context and subtext. Although I was not born when this picture had been recorded, it was part of my heritage. My potentiality was portrayed in this image. By not knowing the answers to my questions, my heritage had shrunk.