If Only I Had a Camera
This weekend I sat on the balcony of our 9 story ocean lookout and found myself in a position that was not unfamiliar. I wanted a camera. I wanted to capture the moment. But I was cognizant that leaving my purch to fetch my camera would ruin everything. So I sat there. Record or experience — sometimes you have to make a choice.
Moments like these come and go. They appear with great frequency since the birth of our son. You want the first step, the first words, the first everything recorded for posterity. You don’t want to miss anything. In a perfect world, every discovery would have a picture. Every new movement would appear on video. But that isn’t possible. You pick and choose. Should I hold the camera or hold his hand?
In the sand, I choose the later. My wife held the camera. My son took an assisted trot and got a little sand between his toes.
The beach itself silently signaled the end of summer. It was mostly deserted. A few people were here and there. Beach blankets were in short supply. No one was there to swim. They were just there for the visit, perhaps to say goodbye until the warmth of summer returns the following year. You could almost hear the opening number to Grease. A home movie, silent or no, would tell the same story. Pictures did the trick just fine.
But on the balcony I wasn’t so lucky. Story time came early — just after breakfast. My mother-in-law was reading to my son. An old storybook of the wife’s was in her hand. Her words were very familiar to the little girl who now has a little boy of her own. My own mother and I watched as the reading of one became a chorus of two. The wife knew the words by heart. She didn’t need the book to pass the story along. No pictures of that one. I’ll just have to remember that I was there.
