In Italy I spent a considerable amount of time inserting myself into the background of people's pictures. No to make faces, or stand in funny ways, or to in any way ruin their atmosphere, but just to stand there, maybe only in parts. I was trying to make myself transparent on that trip but in the process feeling invisible--all of the people I met on the way had a camera stuffed full of pictures of themselves in front of the Colosseum or outside the Doge's Palace, but as I was traveling alone I was never a part of my own hard copy memories. There was no proof that I had been anywhere except what was in my own head, and I became a little preoccupied by making sure that I showed up somewhere. To confirm that I had really been somewhere; that I wasn't only a ghost.
Even now when I feel myself disappearing, I think of the small girl with the pink umbrella idling by a bridge sitting on someone else's computer, in someone else's memory, and feel myself just a little more solid.
No comments:
Post a Comment