Legacy Writing 365:90

Life would probably be a lot easier if it would conform to the rules of fiction. We’d recognize foreshadowing. Know which people who come into and go out of our lives are significant and which ones are just there for comic relief or to advance the plot. We’d know who the bad guys are. We’d understand our motivation, recognize and accept our flaws, know when we’re being the bad guys and why we should stop it. Chapter endings would help us realize when it’s time to move on to the next thing. We’d be able to identify and know the significance of the metaphors and symbols. And the whole shebang would be headed toward an inevitable conclusion that we could somehow live with even if it wasn’t the exact outcome we’d hoped for.

This picture is from a day when a group of us escaped the pressures of finals and other end-of-the-semester responsibilities, tromped through the woods, and had a picnic next to… I don’t know. Some moving water outside Tuscaloosa. The others might remember the location. You may not see it in this photo of me, and probably some of what I see is the result of hindsight–I know where the story’s going–but I believe a thin layer of anxiety is starting to show on my face. It was the end of my junior year, and for the first time, I would be staying in Tuscaloosa for the summer and taking classes. My senior year, I’d be learning some hard lessons about the consequences of my actions.

But for one day, I could still breathe in the environment and feel okay. I could still believe I was mostly doing the right things for mostly the right reasons. There aren’t many photos from that day because sometimes living in the moment is more pressing than capturing it on film. And sometimes a camera puts a necessary barrier between me and an experience or gives me something to do when I’d otherwise inflict awkward conversation on someone. But for this day, I was among loved and trusted friends. There was no awkwardness, only the day and the magic of people who know and accept one another.

This is probably my favorite of the day’s few photos: my friend Joe. He’s still my friend, after all these years, even though our correspondence happens in fits and starts, and it’s even more rare for us to see each other. I just know he’s there, still a part of my life, as are two more people from that day who I rarely get to see. Joe sent an email on my birthday–he always remembers. He also sent me a photo of his beautiful new granddaughter. I think I’ve finally figured out how it is that some of my friends have grandchildren when I’m still thirty-five; it has something to do with the rules of fiction.