PHOTO FINISH
Bring Marie Kondo Into the Labyrinth of My Photo Albums
Toss out the uglies
If I had a wayback machine, I would have stored my photographs the same way my stepfather did.
He was a scientist and scientists are great with labelers. A scientist, without a system to organize, is fucked. People are always throwing around the word Mad Scientist but you rarely hear people say Messy Scientist.
Messy scientists become writers — damn good writers, but writers.
Growing up with a scientist, everything in our home cabinets was labeled — bandaids, photographs, decaf/caff coffee, sock drawers, pencils, pens, newspaper articles, VCR movies, sleeping pills, tweezers.
I tried labeling my drawers once after I moved out. I got plonked on the head by the failure hammer every time I opened those drawers. The labels and the contents did not align.
If I labeled my arms, I’d lose them. Labeling and putting things away that match the labels require entirely different skill sets.
After giving up on it, I misplaced the labeler for about a decade.
When I found it, I donated it to the Goodwill — for some other schmuck who believed labeling would solve all their problems. I should have tossed it. Very few people live up to the marching orders of a labeler.
This labeling affliction is one of the reasons my photo albums lack chronology and any kind of identifiable system. Every one of my albums contains the mystery of its contents.
When I am looking for a photo from a certain era, I have to take out all the albums and sift through them. It takes hours.
In the past, I never saw this as an opportunity to make meaning out of this madness. I just put them back, as chaotically as I found them.
My stepfather used the same style of three-ring black notebooks for our family photos that he used to organize his laboratory research.
I ordered 12 of those notebooks yesterday. It’s never too late to put things in order — but I’m doing it my way. With a little help from Marie Kondo. I’m using my album reorganization to delve into my soul.
I started the project yesterday. I am churning through every album and tossing out photos that do not spark joy. My friend said, “You really have to really know yourself to choose which photos spark joy and which ones to toss out.”
It’s true. When people are in pictures, emotions add confusion.
What I figure is, what I don’t know about myself now, I’ll figure out as I go through the albums. It’s an Odyssey without a sea. Well, Amy Sea, but no salt water. Unless there are tears, which there may be — see? Confusing.
Maybe I’ll discover I don’t like everyone in those albums and I don’t need to keep a record of them. Who knows what I’ll discover? I’m at the precipice.
So, where to begin? Which photos do I toss out first? Easy. Any picture where I feel ugly. Why keep those? Why did I ever keep those? That’s a question for another day.
I know people say, “You’ll want those younger pictures of yourself when you’re older.” Well, I’m older than I was in those pictures and I still don’t like looking ugly.
Le Fin, for now
