Above:
Leora Troper - March 2004
Above:
2 March 2004, profile as seen by my seven year old son. I'm
always surprised by my profile - it seems to have almost nothing
to do with my self image.
Above:
New Year's Day breakfast in Portland Oregon as the snow fell
outside (Michael, Emily, Leora, our daughter and Andrea.)
Above:
23 June 2004, 12 mm, ISO 1600, f 5.6, 1/45 sec.
Hmmm.... now that
I have this life, I wonder what I should do with it?
Above:
July 2004 - Available Light, by Leora
Above:
My daughter eats cake at her cousin's birthday party in Portland,
Oregon, August 2004
Above:
Leora and our daughter, August 2004, Cambria, California
Above:
August 21, Venice Beach, California
Above:
Leora Troper, October 17, after her weekend library science
class, over a lunch of macaroni and cheese.
Above:
Lunch, Sunday October 17, photo by Leora.
Above:
Our children at play, Sunday October 17. When they are sweet,
they are very very sweet...
Above:
December 1, 2004
Above
and Right: December 24, Graham visited PDX and Reed, some 25
years later.
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Is
there an echo in here? Documented Life has a peculiar effect
upon my consciousness. I often feel that I'm living in the distant
past of my never to be met great grandchildren. At every family
gathering I seem to find myself thinking "this is the mysterious
long-ago past that someone will puzzle over some day, and these
pictures and thoughts will be the last remaining fragments of
an unimaginably distant early 21st century life."
My descendants are watching and wondering from deep within the
world to come "who were these people and how did it feel
to them to be alive?" Most of them won't care of course,
and that is fine and well. But some day one of them will care.
He or she will stare at these pictures and words and wonder
all of the things that I wonder as I look at pictures from the
late 19th century, trying to penetrate the veil of time. In
this way my days become the distant past of the distant future.
Every thought and image becomes an echo of the past in an imagined
world to come. I'm not sure if or how that affects anything
I actually do, but this sense of echoey futurity is a powerful
feeling in which to live. (March 2004, revised
October 2004)
Above: Oregon Gothic - January 1, 2004 - Photo by MT
Above:
After the Big Snow, January 2004 - Photo by Leora
Above:
That's my seven year old guy. February 2004.
Above:
May 2004 My children share a laugh outside of People's Food
Store, during the Village Building Convergence.
Above: May 2004 - Photo by my son.
Above:
Leora and our daughter visiting with grandparents, Paul
and Gianna, in
Cambria, California, August 2004
Above:
Los Angeles, Paige Museum, Wolf Skulls, August 2004
Above:
Just another backyard Sukah in Portland Oregon, October 2004
I
often think how odd it is that my various ancestors
have me as their descendant. To be sure they could imagine nothing
about the 21st century, much less the names or number of their
descendants. But what were the odds that one of their descendants
would take them on as a project, and publicize to the world the
fact that they once lived and breathed? So it is very odd that
they have me. I don't think they could have imagined. And yet,
even if you believe that they have utterly vanished, that death
annihilates completely, still they do have me, making memories
of them, contemplating what their lives might have meant to them
or to others.
Above:
October 17 my guy at play with his sister.
Above:
December 1, 2004
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