I love the film ‘Sliding Doors’ which portrays life changing on the basis of what has or hasn’t gone before it? If we do something one way would the end result be different or the same? Fate or just one moment in time altering the course of destiny forever?
Another film, one which I could watch over and over, has a similar concept when it comes to moments in time changing everything forever. ‘One Day’, which was Richard Curtis’s last foray into film, is one of the most stunningly beautiful films I’ve ever seen. It’s hard to explain it without giving everything away and it’s hard to imagine how wonderful it is until you see it but it depicts family and love exactly as I want it to be. And, because it involves travelling back in time to certain moments, we get to see how life would have turned out should something have been changed even slightly.
The main character realises that there comes a point where he can’t go further back because otherwise his children would never have been. He can go back and re live any moment in time right up until the baby he loves is born or it will never be the same child in the future again. Sounds very strange but honestly, it’s brilliant. Truly. And the love! Oh the love is wonderful!
Of course in reality we can’t go back in time and re-live precious moments but we can of course remember them and these days, with technology as fantastic as it is, we can do that with wonderful photographs; our phones, which have sophisticated cameras built in, are always in our pockets. Our children today probably get snapped every single day of their lives so all those ‘moments in time’ that we’d want to re-live and remember can be documented on our social media channels for all to see and printed onto just about anything! Photobox make photo books (which I love), mugs, canvases, posters, cushions, oh, absolutely tons of things to print our pictures on, they even make phone and tablet cases with favourite photographs to look at as you snap more!
When you think of your special, prescious moments it’s often the weddings, births, birthdays and the like which spring to mind; we have always documented those times traditionally even before camera phones and selfie sticks! But what I like nowadays is that we document the every day. We get to capture, occasionally, prescious moments we didn’t know we’re going to be so. With children these days seem to happen more often I have found and ordinary days turn into ones we hold in our hearts because they were filled with learning, joy and family. Sometimes Jonny and the children moan that I’m always behind the lens but everyone is always really pleased there are lots of photos to look back at. Lots of ways of remembering those ‘one moment in times’ even when on paper they should just be ordinary ones.
It’s this sort of ordinary day in the Richard Cirtis film that the lead character re-visits. In fact, on his Father’s advice he starts to re-live EVERY day to see how special all his moments can be. He lives the first day normally, rushing around and working and then the second time he takes everything in and notices all the special things. And when he goes back in time to see his Dad one last time, it’s not a momentous occasion he chooses but a walk on the beach that has stayed with him as a perfect moment in time. Just a walk that turned out to be a moment in time to remember.
I think for me my most prescious moments are just like that. Of course the day I got married, found out I was having a baby and similar are etched in my memory as special moments in time but it’s much littler things that I would re-visit if I could I think.
There’s a picture on my wall of the children splashing in a puddle. We’d gone out for the day with our SureStart centre to the woods and it was a perfect day that makes me smile still. Another time I remember was being at the science museum with Florence as a small baby. Just her and I and a perfect day with moments to remember.
One moment in time recently that I will remember forever was Jimmy and Florence simply pulling faces at me as I took their photograph in our living room. No biggie, no date necessarily to remember but yet a moment in time that I always will! And that’s what’s special to me. All the little things because actually, often, they turn out to be the biggest memories. Because of photographs I get to look back and smile – not quite time travel but lovely all the same.
This post was written as a challenge from photo box.
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