A Thank you Letter to Capacity
With a swift click of my thumb, time is frozen; everything in sight is seized with more saturation and transparency. Any given moment can be captured within a 6 by 3-inch screen, almost without fail; that is, if you have enough storage. As a collection of days, weeks, months, and years build up on my phone’s memory, the space for the new slowly dwindles. This absolute threshold of memories I, or my phone, may capacitate provides me the resisted gift of selectivity in memories I may visibly revisit.
Spending time in places I find beautiful is inescapable for me; the qualifications are not limited. The unexpected integrity of places, things, and people often surprises me. Although my great attempts to be present surrounded by such natural beauty, my memory continues to fail me. My savior for as long as I can remember, which clearly can’t be too long, has been to capture these moments in single frames. Although photos have no inherent motion, the single frame's authentic presence is able to convey intense activity. Although my photos may appear as a simple building, person, animal, or landscape to a fresh eye, I have the background and emotion to contextualize the events in this simple image. The blurred outline of me walking past a purple-lit-up modern house; though this image may simply appear as a photo of me at a party, it is a photo of me racing to say hi and hug an old friend, with whom I fell out of touch with. As my friend took this photo, my feet appeared one in front of the other, rushing toward him. Although I had no recollection of seeing him, someone from my past had re-entered my life, and revisiting this photo encouraged me to reach out. The next night we had dinner. If this moment had not been captured, I would not have rekindled this relationship I forgot I had missed oh so much; or the photo of the abandoned site of Camp Hero. Emotions are instantaneous. The moment I had climbed back out of the hole in the fence of the site, all the timidness, and curiosity about what I may see as I turned the next corner or climbed the next level of a building had vanished.
In the collection of photographs taken at Camp Hero, you can see the resentment in my steps. My face, bracing itself for the possibility of the roof beneath me collapsing or a man living in these homes chasing me. My hand, clenched in a fist grasped my pink taser. My hair, was fluid in the wind as I raced to the edge of the roof. My eyes gleamed at the view from what seemed like the top of Montauk. This photo reminds me that my life can be filled with adventure and timidness if I want it to be. Revisiting these photos and the emotions permeating the screen, I find myself researching more places where I can feel alive again.
My more recent struggle of deleting photos off my phone has caused great grievance; as I hit the “delete photo” button, the possibility of never reencountering this moment in time races through my mind. Even if it is a person I no longer speak to, a place I no longer visit, or an event I no longer associate with, it affected me in a small way. I resent the release of those memories. This resentment, although painful, makes me thankful and appreciative. Resentfully releasing these events makes me that much more intent on capturing the important moments. Along with finding the intention of capturing these moments, I discovered that the capacity on my phone is not much different from the capacity I hold. The inevitable threshold of this capacity, whether reliant on my brain or my iPhone storage, has unintentionally caused me to be more present in moments I find beautiful.
The capacity that I and my phone share teach me so much about the threshold of memories. As I find moments I can come to terms with erasing, I make room for new ones, whether digitally or mentally. This realization of a shared tendency to let go of some things has given me the gift of presence and alertness. Contrary to my resentment of these losses, I thank my phone's capacity and all it has taught me how to let go and treasure the present.