paintings from the lens

The days are quiet now.

The grass crunches under my feet. I can still hear the traffic, but it sounds different today. Is it different, or am I just different?

I spend a lot of time in my bedroom these days. Black and white photographs paint the walls with memories. I find my eyes dancing across the images, no matter how many times I've seen them.

I am twelve in the oldest shot, hugging my best friend. I'm covered in fake dirt, filled with naiveté, and I am in my first musical. My dad drives me home that night and I lean into the back stead with no knowledge of what the future holds, but filled with joy and the strange but distinct knowledge this is it. I don't know what "it" is - I won't for another six years - but I feel settled in a way that I can't describe.

To the right of that photo, I am fifteen and surrounded by girls in prom dresses. I don't talk to most of the girls in that photo anymore, but it will always be one of my favorites because they helped me to grow. They made me feel a little less small and a little more seen, and that means a lot at any age, but especially when you're fifteen and stick to the corners. But they make a fuss over you and you dance all night, and find that you're a little less scared than you were before.

A few rows down is an array of photos all from the same season. I am seventeen and laughing in every single one. Laughing as I stand next to the boy who I've known since we were both in glasses, because he always makes fun of the way that I stand, one foot tucked behind the other. I tell him that old dance habits die hard, and he mimics the pose as the camera flashes, and now we're both laughing. Laughing the night of my graduation as I'm surrounded by my best friend from the seventh grade and the two boys who grew up by our sides. We were all in that first musical together, and they will always be family. Laughing in a cluster of people all falling on top of one another as we try for a group photo on the last day of high school. It's messy and dysfunctional and it's perfect.

Now I am nineteen. I stand in the grass, camera in hand. I'm waiting on my sister because quarantine or not, we're taking her senior photos. We stand under my grandparents' cherry tree, and I peer through the lens that has painted so many of my life's most beautiful memories. The people scattered across my walls are an anchor and a heartbeat, and while some relationships have flourished and others decayed, they are the paintings I treasure all the same. I raise the camera.

It's time to paint again.

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Some words from April's #escapril challenge that are especially close to my heart. For more nostalgia-filled prose, shameless plug to check out my Instagram for lots more where that came from. :-)