Name: Alejandra B
Location: Mexico
Age: 36
Meaning:
From all the different roads that we encounter it’s really easy to deviate the way, but in this photo it changes the reality that I’m living in my country, the calm, the quiet and the peace that reflects this image is the lack of what we are living in Mexico, this one is a hope of a feeling of security that once I had and right now it is uncertain!
Name: Erica Website: www.beenthinking.tumblr.com Meaning:
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Age: 34
Name: Sara L.
Location: Sun City, AZ
Age: 29
Meaning:
These are the keys to my old one-bedroom apartment, my home for the last four years. I’m supposed to return these to the landlord but I have not decided if I’ll instead lock them away as some odd trinket from this former life. The door these keys open held in some of my favorite experiences and several of my darkest secrets. For years these keys have been a completely negligible part of my life, a boring detail and sometimes a minor irritant (a weekly game of “if I were the keys then where would I be?”) and now I stare at them like they open a treasure chest of nostalgia. Now, as the door of the U-Haul truck slams shut, I feel an almost cleansing feeling wash over me. It’s time to start over.
Name: Amanda F.
Location: Greenville, SC
Age: 30
Meaning:
I found this jar in the basement of my childhood home when we were moving my parents out of it. Well, I didn’t “find it” per say, because I knew it had always been there. It was one of those things that just sat on a shelf in the basement, covered in dust and grime and completely forgotten. For all my life it had been background scenery, something hardly noticed, a mundane detail. But when I picked the jar up off the shelf, it seemed to throw the entire shelf out of proportion as if something was obviously missing. Eventually we cleaned the rest of the shelf off, some items were packed up, others went to Goodwill and the dump, but I saved this jar. Now whenever I look at it, I remember how that shelf looked, and how that basement smelled, and I laugh to myself about what we choose take with us.
Name: Carole H.
Location: Teesside, England
Age: 47
Meaning:
Teesside is a special place. In the 1960s and 1970s there was much financial hardship, but Teessiders have a special talent for finding fun in the mundane. These cooling towers were the backdrop to my early childhood, and my Dad worked for ICI who owned them. Teesside has diverse picturesque landscapes, shaped by millennia of human habitation. For me the cooling towers and flare stacks were simply a natural part of this. It’s just home, and the memory of being loved, cherished and protected as a little child. Cooling towers provoke deep nostalgia and feelings I can’t articulate, poignancy, loss, and intensity. Dim memories of my sister who died in infancy.
Name: Cam H.
Location: Sandy, Utah
Age: 32
Meaning:
I stumbled across this copy of The Dharma Bums at a used book store. Flipping through the pages I noticed the previous reader had highlighted certain passages and I was struck by this specific line:
“Happy. Just in my swim shorts, barefooted, wild-haired, in the red fire dark, singing, swigging wine, spitting, jumping, running—that’s the way to live.”
This novel tells the story of traveling around America and the encounters one has when hitching rides on the railroad. Each time I read through the book I can’t help but feel the spark of adventure take over and the sudden urge to sell off all my belongings and hit the open road. In that instant of inspiration all things are possible.
Name: Chris G. Location: New Hampshire Age: 26 Meaning: When I was 11 years old my family got a dog. This is her collar, expired rabies tags and all. For some reason I’ve always felt she needed a red collar, I don’t know why. Any other colored collars she’s had over the years mysteriously disappeared so that the infamous red one could return. This former puppy is now 15 years old and I’m 26, so in a sense we “grew up” together. Things change quite rapidly in life and amidst all the chaos that is “growing up” some are lucky enough to have constants, that which don’t change and hold steady throughout.
Name: James C. Location: Massachusetts Age: 24 Meaning: I remember how this stairway smells. The air at my grandparent’s house has that trademark musty, stale smell that comes from too many oriental rugs and not enough dusting. It doesn’t smell in a bad way though, but in a way that reminds me of playing hide and seek with my little brother in what always seemed to be a massive house. When I visit now, the house seems smaller, maybe because I’m bigger and older. Yet I can’t help but scout out my old hiding spots and marvel over how much my life has changed since then and how much this house has stayed the same.
Name: Michael G.
Location: Maine
Age: 26
Meaning:
This ironing board is located in a beach house in Maine. Though illegible in this picture, thanks to being written in pencil, a short note is scribed that “This ironing board was built on a beautiful sunny day in 1969”. I don’t know who Agnes is, or who made the ironing board, but it always reminds me of two happy old grandparents enjoying a nice day and kidding one another in their quaint beach home.
Something to look forward to in growing older.
