November 09, 2009

Picture The Past

On Saturday, Dad brought a couple of photos from my late grandfather’s, now lonely standing, house. These have been sitting in a pile in my grandma’s room, out of sight and out of mind. Dad’s shabby effort at a winter clean-up revealed some of our family’s old snapshots and I though that I’d very much like to share it with you.

I don't blog about my folks much these days. To a certain degree, because they read it, and for the most part, because I don't know where to start. My family has been through rough times of late. For a home that, a long time ago, was as interdependent as ours it is overwhelming to see it spacing out so wildly. And all this distancing won't end until each person takes responsibility for their own actions.

I've toiled my way through some very thorny insights which have left in me in essence as being the peace keeper, the intercession strategist, the one who’s supposed to understand everyone else. It troubles me deeply but that's where we rest. Possibly in time things will correct themselves. If they don't...well, I can learn to live with that.

This brings me back to the resurfacing of the mysterious photos. My grandma kept these by her for almost fifty years. After my grandpa died and my dad found them, I claimed them as my own. I didn't want to take the old album apart to scan in the photos, so pardon the less than super pictures.

Parents & siblings, circa 1987.
Perhaps looking at the pictures now is a reminder of how things used to be when everyone didn’t have to try so hard to be together. Maybe the people in these pictures will take a long glance at them now, commit to memory the way things used to be, recall what it was like to beam, and do justice to the man who hasn’t stop smiling ever since he found these carefully hidden pictures and kept us all together, for the longest time, in spite of ourselves.

Love you dad! Happy Birthday!
Switchfoot’s The Beautiful Letdown is among my favorite albums. I think it's a recipe of the music and the recollections. It was life altering for me. I picked it up in college, during my graduation, and it was with me through many changes. Their most awaited seventh studio album ‘Hello Hurricane’ and the lead single off it ‘Mess of me’ were released this year. While I was in doubt about ‘Hello Hurricane’ making it big on the music scene, I was curious. But damn, is it an experience. The thing about the track ‘Mess of me’ is that it exposes things about the band I never expected were there. Jon Foreman's vocals are perfect and who knew he had recorded so many solid solo tracks? The guitar work is insane. It sounds rougher, less polished, in this song. The rhythm section is solid, as usual. Listening to ‘Mess of me’ is like having the sand blown off an island exposing buried treasure chests. It makes a near perfect song that exposes the inner workings of a great album and a great band in the making.