I Could Talk About....

Dear Diary,

One of the exercises this week in my e-class, Honoring Ancestors, had us take a photograph that included an ancestor.  I chose this one, a scan of an old slide dated 1959.  It shows my grandmother, me and my baby sister.  It asked us to complete this phrase as many times as we could, "I could talk about...."

Of course, I could talk about my grandmother as the ultimate care-giver in our home.  Or I could talk about my baby sister who I adored.  Or I could talk about the old country road in front of our house that had so little traffic that it was quite safe to pose for a photograph on it.  Or I could talk about that bike, the one I was given a couple of years before when my favorite blue bike with the multi-colored streamers on the handle grips was given to my orphaned cousin who had come to live with us and how I was filled with resentment and disappointment on the loss of my bike.  Now I see that it was the right thing to do but children often see things so quite differently.

It was the bike that elicited the lengthiest piece of writing as you can see.  I thought I was going to write on and on about my grandmother, and I certainly could, but I ended up writing about the bicycle!  This was a very interesting exercise and one I encourage you to try with an old photograph.  You may find you have the same experience I did.  One photograph is truly worth 1,000 words and then some!