Sunrise, Sunset

When I was in college my parents came up one weekend and we went to see the theater department's production of Fiddler on the Roof. We had an exceptional theater department and it was a fabulous show. I remember listening to Sunrise, Sunset being performed and thinking how beautiful it was. And how melancholy. I was 19. Unmarried, untried, untested, mortality was not even in my vocabulary. My life was only beginning. I barely had one foot out the door.

Fast Forward—

My mother's 80th birthday is Labor Day weekend. My brothers and I are meeting with her in Denver to celebrate. I thought it would be fun to resurrect some of our old family videos. My mother sent me a box with over 40 video tapes in it. Some of them were 30 years old.

It's been a major project. Our antique VCR self-destructed Mission Impossible style when we tried to eject a tape that had been left in it. So we bought a VHS / DVD recorder to transfer the VHS files to DVD and get the files on my computer. That was a bit of a learning curve.

Then research to find a conversion software to create .MOV files I could manipulate. 

And then the fun really started, using iMovie to edit and enhance and string together a narrative. I deeply regret I didn't do this at least 14 years ago when I got my first version of iMovie. The videos are still watchable now, but I'm sure the tapes would have been in much better shape then.

And Rewind— 

It was a surreal experience seeing myself so much younger, with long thick dark hair which is mostly silver now. A shocking realization that I am entering the autumn of my life.

My father was still with us, I heard  him teasing his subjects and laughing as he focused on them from behind the camera. Seeing his image and hearing his voice again was physically painful at first. He will be forever the same age. The age I am now. But once the sense of loss subsided this glimpse into the past began to feel like a gift that had been concealed. 

My 3 oldest nephews are grown men now. But in the alternate reality of this week I got to relive the sweet time when they were babies and toddlers.

Indelible — haunting — and bittersweet

Sunrise, sunset, 

Swiftly fly the years,

One season following another,

Laden with happiness,

And tears