Looking back

Thomas Cole: "Voyage of Life"

I've held seven American passports in my life.  That's not quite as bad as it sounds; passports used to be valid for shorter periods than they are now.  Still, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since my first passport at the age of 20.

Some author -- I wish I remember who -- wrote that few things are so depressing to an older person as to examine and compare each of his passport photos, studying them in chronological order.  Yup -- been there, done that.  It ain't pretty.

I was reminded of my passport photos -- although as documentation of the process of growing up, rather than breaking down -- when I saw Richard Linklater's film Boyhood this past weekend.  With amazing persistence, he filmed his movie over a twelve year period, while his star, Ellar Coltrane, aged from 6 to 18.  The boy's aging is seamless.  As one scene moves to the next, Ellar gradually grows older.  All his life, Ellar will have that movie as the ultimate in home movies of his childhood -- a more sophisticated evidence of the aging process than is my succession of passport photos.

And -- totally unrelated causally to my viewing of Boyhood on Friday -- I've spent this weekend reviewing decades of my photographic slides, posting representative samples on Facebook.  A week ago, I ordered a scanner to digitalize slides, and it arrived on Friday.  Having a new toy has filled my life with new purpose, you betcha!  At least until I get bored playing with it.

In any event, posting slides taken over the decades -- but mostly during my twenties, thirties and forties -- has given me another form of the Boyhood "passage of years" experience.  Fortunately for my viewers, most of the photos aren't of me.  Many are of friends with whom I've traveled and hiked.  Many also are of relatives as small children, relatives who have since grown up into parents who have their own pages on Facebook.  Many of the photos, sadly, are of relatives who are no longer with us. 

Regardless of each photo's subject matter, the swift passage of time is an obvious, if unintended, subtext to my Facebook gallery.

But I'm not depressed.  I enjoy reviewing my photos, sharing them on Facebook, and reading the comments they elicit.  Other people often see different things in photos from those you, the photographer, see.  And even if the changes to myself and to my friends aren't always encouraging (or flattering), they're certainly always interesting.  If time is a rapidly flowing river, which we navigate as we head for the open sea, it would be a waste to lock ourselves in our stateroom, refusing to observe how the scenery changes as we pass through it.

As any traveler recognizes as he mulls over his travels -- there's no such thing as a "bad trip," even when the destination is disappointing.  All travel is fascinating.  And especially, the great voyage of life itself.