Through the Lens and Back

lost and found

by Jeneen R. Garcia 
 

It is the most beautiful things that come to us unexpectedly, at those moments when we have our cameras locked in the car, or forget to bring the spare set of batteries, or simply, too transfixed by this exquisite vision, do nothing and lose it to fleeting chance. 

On the other hand, how does one capture the blueness of a twilight spanning the breadth of heaven and the depths of the sea? In the blink of an eye, the late afternoon sun leaves the earth cold, and darkness blankets the shore. All that is left are fragments in forgetful corners of our minds--the tide rushing in, light falling on the sand, the breath held in awe at the magnificent silence. These times, the only thing to do is stand still. Listen. 

Driving with my family in upstate New York in October last year, we realized too late that we had not a single working camera with us. My mother and brother had not thought to bring their digital cameras. Mine was in a locked room I didn’t have the key to, and I had left my manual SLR sitting useless in a bag at home. The only one who had remembered to bring his was my youngest brother, but it didn’t have enough power to shoot more than one bad photo, we soon found out. 

Oh, but still, how could we not stop and bask for more than a few minutes when a doe suddenly emerged from the bushes and trotted across the road with her fawn? The autumn light fell slanting through leaves in passage from crimson to gold; the late afternoon air was crisp. Later, we walked across a long, old bridge that led to a dense island of trees caught in fall. The lake below shimmered dark green, vermillion, burgundy. Water spilled over the edge of it down terraces of cobblestone to a black river where an old man waded knee-deep, waiting patiently for fish. 

For the first time since they were kids fighting over everything from toys to music to bedroom space, my two brothers walked side by side in complete peace--a truce that perhaps would sustain them for at least as long as the memory of this time and place would last. I stood at the side of the bridge drinking everything in, memorizing, memorizing. 

Our cameras remained empty, but our eyes, our ears, and our hearts were full. Not of exact replicas of what we had seen but, much better, of details that film or an electronic chip could never have captured. The pictures I keep of that place are mine and no one else’s. I tell this story now knowing also that in the telling, I am creating a new memory in the minds of those who hear it, images that will likewise never be mine, only for the hearer to keep. 

On the other hand, how does one capture the beauty of a heart suddenly revealed in the curve of a lip that does not need to speak, in the slow unfolding of emotion on a field of grass? Some details not even words can contain. Only another heart can be faithful in the telling. I dare not come near with anything more, or less.