SCATTERED PHOTOGRAPHS

“I know this much: that there is objective time, but also subjective time, the kind you wear on the inside of your wrist, next to where the pulse lies. And this personal time, which is the true time, is measured in your relationship to memory.” ― Julian Barnes

Today, I couldn’t pull my gaze away from my father’s face. As he spoke, he looked slightly different from the photo in the album from when I was about 4 or 5. Now, he has more lines above his eyebrows. Lines that time drew with an eloquent precision. Like choosing the right words to say, when a situation required. Or finding a painting that articulates perfectly a random feeling you’ve had and decided to keep for yourself, because life is full of insignificant little emotions. But now you know, time wouldn’t let them pass. It will keep on carving... gently... delicately everyday… making from your beautiful human face its most life-affirming masterpiece.

He kept talking, and I kept skimming through the details of his face; his chin grew a little wider and his tanned skin has now a fluffier feel. However, his eyes were still the same. As I’ve always remembered them…they were a lighter shade of brown, sage and inviting. They glowed with a soul-piercing intensity when he stood in the light.

They weren’t the disturbingly intense kind, though. The color stimulates a vague urge to know more… know what he has been through over all those years to maintain such a look… an expression… an attitude towards life… You would want to know what makes him proud or what hurts him the most… and everything about that particular day… when he decided to grow a beard just to cover the scars of his face.

I thought only parents look to their kids with that intense focus. But today I did…with my fifty something year old father. He is still constantly reminding me of how I am still to him that 4 years old girl who smiles to the slightest provocation. A sarcastic grin creases my face, each time he says that. But definitely not today.

Today I’ve became a little detached from reality. Or maybe I’ve grown overly aware of the simplest details of life. Like aware of the fact that I was sipping coffee with my mother. I stood silent for a while. I was savoring the moment. There was something about being with her in the same space and in that particular moment that seemed to me somehow thought provoking. One doesn’t have the privilege to be with one’s mother all the time. We, children learn to be appreciative of our parents when we grow older, more independent…and especially after a prolonged absence.

She said to me: "Please say something. Say something or I will turn that TV on again. I don’t like this silence. Now I can hear the clock ticking. I cannot stand that sound. Just like in that book Le Papillion. Have you ever heard of it?"