Pictures of You, Pictures of Me

“All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.”

 ~Richard Avedon

Each day, or should I say night, as I travel back home from work, navigating through hundreds of vehicles,  cursing at traffic signals that just have to turn red when I reach them, and trying hard to avoid killing pedestrians oblivious to vehicles and moving as if they own the roads, I pass homes, lots of them. At the time I travel home, thanks to my oh-so-exciting job, the lights in most windows are turned off. Some windows however, still shine bright with light. My eyes seem to search for these windows, seek them out in the otherwise dark backgrounds behind streetlights. Over days, I’ve noticed a pattern. If you look long enough, closely enough, these windows seem just like paintings, the view seeming to be almost the same each day. I know it may sound perverse but the people behind those windows, their routines, seem mine now. For the fraction of a second (or a minute or two depending upon the traffic really), that I pass by these windows, I feel like I’m living those moments with them, like they are my family, away from family. Today, I decided to stop and take a picture of each of these windows. Life seems so uncertain; you never know what tomorrow holds. I want to treasure these few moments with my “family”, and what better way then pictures?

Picture 1: A man, old enough to be my father, sitting at a table, eating dinner. The light here is almost always candle-light, like it is tonight, and the soft glow of the flame, lends wonderful color to the image. He sits at an angle, and I can’t see if he’s alone but I assume his wife keeps him company. Oh, for companionship at that age and a wonderful home cooked meal to come home to!

Picture 2: A couple, cuddling together on a couch. The woman gazing up lovingly every few minutes at something the man says, and the man bending down to kiss her forehead or smiling down at her an equal number of times. Oh to be in love, and be loved, and want for nothing more!

Picture 3: A teenage girl, dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, with headphones on, dancing away to glory. No particular dance form, but yet so graceful. Dancing without the slightest hint of self-consciousness, she moves from one end of the room to another, sometimes frantically picking up pace, sometimes slowing down to just moving on the spot, the tiny LED’s above her head casting her in various colors. Oh to not have the worries of a ‘grown-up’ world!

Picture 4: A boy, at his study-table, studying by the light of a table lamp. He seems to do it each day, with the same amount of concentration, even when I’m sure the exams have passed and the next one is far away. Oh, to go back to a time when all that mattered were exams or more importantly, the holidays that came after!

While I have several more pictures, these 4 seem to strike me the most. The ones I’ll treasure for years to come, because they represent people with whom I’d gladly exchange my life, if only for a day.

The view from behind the window:

Window 4: Another night, the few hours before daylight creeps back. So little time, so much to study. If only these equations would start to make sense. My back hurts from sitting for so long, am sure I’ll be a hunchbacked old man. My eyes are droopy with sleep, but I can’t give in. not yet. If I don’t study this tonight, no way will I ever be able to catch up. Am already behind, so behind my schedule. At this rate, I will never be able to get into any of the colleges dad wants me to go to. Times like this, I wish I could just pick up my guitar, which I haven’t touched in days and run away. or maybe, if I could just put on a CD and listen to it. With headphones on. I won’t disturb anyone, but just a minute of escape, and then I’ll get back to studying, I promise.

Window 3: there. That’s better. Now all I can hear is the music, filling my ears, filling my world. I’m moving with it, and it sounds so good. No, no, I got to turn it up louder, I can hear them again, need to shut them out. Need to stop moving so much, maybe they’ll hear me, if they would just stop yelling at each other for one tiny second. The yelling, it never stops. Sometimes, it goes beyond that. And so, my music must. I might die old and deaf, but if it means I can’t hear them yell, I’ll gladly take it. I just hope that tonight, they stay out there, and my door doesn’t slam back on its hinges, with him standing there, angry, so angry, and me blanking out everything, bracing myself for the only ting that can come next. The first blow, that’s the hardest. Please, none tonight though. This is the loudest the music can get. Thank God for this music, and for my boyfriend, who got me into it. The sweetest escape. Both him and the music. Times like this, it seems so simple to just run away with him, and leave this all behind. Just him and me, our own little world. No worries.

Window 2: I could keep her here with me forever, I wish I could take us both away to where it was only us. It seems so comfortable to be here with him. So safe, so secure. Too comfortable. I don’t think I could ever love anyone as much as I love her. She’ so precious, yet so brittle. He loves me, I know it, and I think I love him. But why isn’t it enough for me? My search ends with her. She is the answer to all my life’s questions. Eternity would seem a small time frame to spend with her. Will she stay? What am I looking for? Will my search ever end? Only one way to find out. I have to leave, but I can’t let him know. If he asks me to stay, will I really be able to leave? But I can’t be happy here. She’s left her world for me. just as I know she will leave my world, for something she is searching. I cant ask her to stay, but can I really let her go?

Window 1: 14 years. 14 years and counting that I’m having my dinner alone. And I have only myself to blame. I wasn’t the ideal son, but I pushed my son to be everything I wasn’t. Pushed him too far. One wonderful woman left me and broke my heart, and the second chance that I got with another one, I blew. Never did treat her right. My wife’s dead. My son won’t come visit me. He became everything I pushed him to become and in the bargain pushed him too far away to expect him to come back to me. No more than I deserve. I look out of the window, I was sure I sensed a tiny flash, like that from a camera, and sure enough I see a young man there. Did he just take a picture of me? I try looking into his face, like I do for each young man I see, looking for my son. But it’s too dark outside. He puts down his camera, walks towards his car and rides of. Where are you off to my boy? Running away? Or seeking?

… Because they represent people with whom I’d gladly exchange my life, if only for a day.

~

Song Recommendation: Outside by Staind