Timeless

I wipe the thin layer of dust off the faded vinyl cover and open the album carefully, as to not damage its taped-up spine. The musty smell of dried lavender mixed tickles my nose. I take in the powerful odor, remembering afternoons spent in my grandparents’ basement. Daphne Du Maurier mused of storing memories in bottles, popping off the cork and reliving them whenever it pleases them. I prefer photographs. As I flip through the slightly sticky pages of an old scrapbook, I become engrossed in the past, spellbound by the memories I can feel at my fingertips. The funny thing is that they are not even my own, and yet a surreal sense of nostalgia rushes over me.

            One picture in particular catches my eye and the corner of my mouth tugs into a smile. My grandmother could not have been older than eighteen. Her short dark hair tucked behind a straw hat. Her bangs stopping short above her brow. She is wearing a high waisted skirt with a flowery print and matching halter top, a part of her midriff exposed. Her smooth arms and legs are tanned, having been in the sun all summer. She leans forward against the wired fence, smiling at whoever she was with at the time. The only hint at where they could be being the uncut grass and wild flowers in the corner of the frame.

But where she was or who she was with is not the point. The point is that she was there. At eighteen-years-old, she walked along a field somewhere in the farmlands of Quebec, soaking up the warm sunlight. She probably lost her straw hat to the wind and laughed all the way down a hill as she chased after it. She might have later taken charge of the camera herself and photographed her companion standing by that same fence. I could imagine a dozen more scenarios, but only one is for certain: she lived. Forever young and smiling on a sepia toned piece of paper. And in that instance, she became timeless.