SOURCE

So during my time back at home I've been thinking a lot about "returning to the source," whatever that means. While this theme has carried over into a couple different areas, it has included rooting through boxes of old photographs and stacks of Hi-8 tapes in my dad's basement to uncover my biological source. It's mildly interesting, but I wonder if old photos are like dreams-- we don't really care about other people's.

(These are all my dad's pictures, so the history is therefore skewed to his perspective in this case.) 

 

The original: My Grandmother. 

On the back it says "Miss Sophistication, looking off into the future maybe?" 

Here she is 50 years later (pink tube dress):

 

My great-great aunt and uncle or something. They look unpleasant.

 Tada! My dad is born! Look at him being all "cool guy" on the far left.

 

He goes on to have this monk phase. It's weird. 

 

Then he gets a motorcycle and a girlfriend and becomes a normal person.

 

 

 

They move into this house and have some kids blah blah. Once people get married and have kids their pictures always spiral into mediocrity.

Then finally my mother arrives.

I have to say with no amount of bias that she is consistently the most dignified person in all my father's pictures (despite the terrifying 80's hair). She is always either looking at the scene with cool apathy or gazing off at some unseen horizon. Maybe it's beauty, or maybe it's sadness. How strange that the two are indistinguishable.