Windblown, Sun-Faded Fragments in the Desert

This is a continuation of last month's theme: death, impermanence, decay, loss. How was your day? These pictures were found grainy and windblown, sun-faded on a desert hill. The impulse that caused someone to keep them however long it had been kept, had blown away with a new wind and they had entered a new incarnation not as objects to be hoarded and guarded, but as an impermanent phenomenon to be let go to the universe. Now I find them. But I do not find them together and do not know if they are related. The picture of the boy was found months ago; the family picture last week. They were on the same hill, but about 1/2 mile from each other. I keep them because of curiosity, and so new meaning is attached to these artifacts that has nothing to do with the original meaning. Perhaps someone visiting this article will see them and attach meaning yet again. Perhaps the original photographer or relatives, or the subjects themselves will re-connect with the instant in forgotten time when the pictures were taken.

The photographer has used a conceit and pictured this boy as having a reverie about some little girl. Is this a sister? Is the little girl alive or dead? Could it be a girl friend? What is the photographer implying here? About whom does the little girl fantasy? Is any of it the little boy's idea, or is it all the photographer's fantasy?

The family appear phlegmatic, depressed, sadly hopeful but not of much to me.Particularly in the mother's eyes, I see a resignation. Her son seems the happiest. Of course I attach these relationships to these people. Most likely they are mother and children, but maybe not.

In any case I am glad I kept the pictures. There was a paranoid moment when I wondered if some foul play was behind all this. Most people do not scatter their family photographs in the desert. Was this Exhibit A tucked into my hiking pack? Would I in some way be implicated in an unsolved crime? Unlikely but possible. After finding the second picture, I could not remember if I had kept the first. Finding the second reminded me of the first and I felt relief when I found it.

Maybe the pictures were hurled from a passing Jeep by a disaffected spouse, divorced or separated, drunk or in grief or in rage. Maybe the photographer tired of his devices and tossed out his productions to start over with a new vision. Or rid himself of reminders of a failing business. Maybe the mother tossed them because they were lousy pictures. Maybe they were not meant to be lost, and the owners search for them still.